Foul Lady Fortune

Foul Lady Fortune is set against the backdrop of 1930s Shanghai and draws much of its inspiration from actual events that occurred in the city during that decade. In many ways, Shanghai was an anomaly compared to the rest of the country. Situated on China’s central coast, Shanghai had long been a trading city that received goods from all parts of America, Europe, and Asia. As a result, it housed a heterogeneous population of locals and merchants from the West. By the 1930s, Shanghai was experiencing an economic boom and housed a population of three million, making it the fifth-largest city in the world. In addition, it was notorious for vice. By the turn of the 20th century, the city had already become an international center for opium smuggling. Unsurprisingly, powerful gangs rose to prominence to control these activities. In this respect, the novel’s focus on gangsters competing for power is historically accurate.

The 1911 Revolution ended imperial control of the country when the Nationalists took power. In Shanghai, the government learned to rely on mobsters to maintain political control. The Green Gang became the government’s law enforcement branch. Their activities are echoed in the novel’s fictional Scarlet Gang. Another of the novel’s parallels to historical events is the strong presence of Russian nationals in Shanghai. Shortly after the Russian revolution of 1917, a large influx of White Russians emigrated to China and eventually filtered down to Shanghai. The novel’s White Flower gang draws its inspiration from this emigration pattern. The growing power of the Communist movement in China is echoed in the ubiquitous spy networks operating in the novel. The Nationalist alliance with the city’s crime lords continued until the Communists took control of Shanghai in 1949 and ended Nationalist rule of the city.

Foul Lady Fortune depicts a large cast of characters, many of whom are foreign educated. This would have paralleled the actual situation in Shanghai since foreign merchants powerfully influenced local culture and customs. The influence of America and Britain was evident in Shanghai’s architecture and popular entertainment during this period. The city came to be known as the Paris of the East and the New York of the West.

Foreign nationals also dominated the government of the city, the western half allocated to Caucasian residents and the eastern half to Chinese. Although nominally under the control of the Nationalists, the government was effectively run by merchants. This practice stood in contrast to the rest of the country, which was still dominated by local warlords.

The events of the novel strongly reflect the Japanese influence on Shanghai and closely parallel real events during this era. The novel refers more than once to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. In 1932, the Japanese attacked Shanghai, and an armed conflict continued for some time without war ever being declared. However, the encroachments of the Japanese into Shanghai effectively ended any pretense of autonomy, and the 1937 Battle of Shanghai finally ended Chinese control of the city. While foreign concessions remained, these ended when Japan declared war on the US in December 1941.

In choosing to set Foul Lady Fortune in 1930s Shanghai, the author depicts the city at the peak of its power and wealth. Its dizzying political landscape and multinational cultural influences offer the perfect backdrop for this tale of intrigue and romance.