''Fighting Angel: Portrait of a Soul'' (1936) is a memoir, sometimes called a "creative non-fiction novel," written by

Pearl S. Buck Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for ''The Good Earth'' a bestselling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, Pulitze ...

about her father,

Absalom Sydenstricker Absalom Andrew Sydenstricker (, 1852–1931) was an American Presbyterian missionary to China from 1880 to 1931.Jost Zetzsche. "Absalom Sydenstricker," in K. Lodwick and W. C. Kwan, (ed.), ''The Missionary Kaleidoscope: Portraits of Six China Mis ...

(1852–1931) as a companion to her memoir of her mother, ''

The Exile ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

''. The book is a conflicted portrait of her father written in 1936 to take advantage of the success of ''The Exile'' but also to tell a different part of her parents’ story. “Andrew,” the name she uses for her father in the book, had a “swordlike singleness of heart,” for the early missionaries, she wrote, were “born warriors and very great men” who were “proud and quarrelsome and brave and intolerant and passionate.” He dedicated himself to “the Work,” as he called it, but a lifetime of evangelizing produced few converts and at the cost of scarcely recognizing the existence of his wife or family and of failing to understand China. Though her father professed not to know what the word “imperialism” meant, Buck sees his mission as part of the “astounding imperialisms of the West.” Buck later remarked that reading Herman Melville’s ''

Moby Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...

'' saved her soul, and perhaps she saw something of her father in

Captain Ahab Captain Ahab is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists in Herman Melville's ''Moby-Dick'' (1851). He is the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod''. On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, ...

, a figure also bent on a mission..

Notes

Reading

* . * . * 1936 American novels Non-fiction novels Works by Pearl S. Buck Novels set in West Virginia Novels set in China Reynal & Hitchcock books {{1930s-novel-stub