Together They Hold Up the Sky: The Story China's Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan

Tracing the early beginnings of both China's President Xi Jinping and first lady Peng Liyuan, Martin Macmillan offers a glimpse into the dynamics that animate the couple's rise to power. Born in 1962, Peng is the daughter of Peng Longkun, who was an official in charge of cultural affairs. Her name became synonymous with a folk music revival which followed the Cultural Revolution. The book also offers an account of the purge of Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, in 1962. The publication of the book, "The biography of Liu Zhidan," a Communist revolutionary, was approved by Xi but deemed anti-Party by Mao. According to Macmillian, Mao had never read the book, but Xi Zhongxun then became imbued with an anti-revolutionary air. Xi Zhongxun, vice premier at the time and at the peak of his career, was sent to the countryside to grow vegetables and corn. Macmillian chronicles the relationship of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing and her influence on the Red Guards. A poignant incident in which Xi Jinping's mother is forced to report him to the authorities for running away from a detention center illustrates the deprivation of the time: the boy ran away from the detention center to ask for food at home. The event was later recorded in his personal files. Finally in 1975, the family's luck began to change, and Xi Jinping's father was let out of jail. During the same year, Xi Jinping was accepted to Tsinghua University, where his career slowly begins to take hold.