Taras Grescoe on a 1930s love triangle that left its mark on modern-day Shanghai
Montreal author Taras Grescoe is a curious person, and he's travelled the world to satisfy that curiousity. On a trip to Shanghai, he was introduced to a time period just before the Second World War where the city was at its most glamorous and decadent, when tycoons and rich colonials mixed with gangsters and poets. The temptation of the subject was too much for Grescoe to resist, and the resulting book, Shanghai Grand, is available now.
Below, in his own words, Taras Grescoe describes the writing process behind Shanghai Grand.
The root of an idea
I got interested in Shanghai by accident. I was travelling in China in 2007, working on a completely different subject, and I was there for a little longer than I expected so I had a few extra days. I wandered into this old hotel on the Bund, which is the riverfront in Shanghai, and there was a group of septuagenarian and octogenarian Chinese jazz musicians playing old jazz classics. And I fell in love with this ancient room I was in, which clearly dated from the 1920s or '30s. And wandering around Shanghai I'd noticed all of this European and American-inspired architecture.
It turned out that the hotel I'd stumbled into used to be the Cathay Hotel and was owned by a man named Sir Victor Sassoon, who was one of the richest men in the world at the time. I became fascinated by Sir Victor and what he'd built in Shanghai.
A Shanghai love triangle
A woman named Emily (Mickey) Hahn became my eyes on Shanghai. She was born in St. Louis, Mo., and was a New Yorker writer for most of her life. She came to Shanghai and was swept off her feet by Sir Victor Sassoon, but soon embarked on a love affair with a Chinese poet named Shao Xunmei. This love triangle became my way to recreate Shanghai, to bring to life the city that you can still vaguely glimpse between the 30- and 40-story residential towers and elevated highway. The buildings, astonishingly enough, still exist, so the story is still there.
Taras Grescoe's comments have been edited and condensed.