Joy

Joy is the main protagonist of the novel. At the beginning of the story, Joy is nineteen years old. She has just found out that her aunt and mother lied to her about her parentage. She always believed Pearl and Sam were her parents, but after Sam's suicide - a tragic act that Joy blames herself for - she finds out that she is in fact May's, the woman she believed to be her aunt, daughter. May became pregnant with Joy before fleeing Shanghai. Joy's biological father is an artist named Z.G. that she has never heard of. When this information is revealed to Joy, she immediately runs away from home and flees to communist China in the hopes of a reunification with her biological father. When she meets Z.G., he is on his way to the countryside to teach peasants how to paint propaganda posters...