Pearl S. Buck: A Life, a Legacy

Director Robert Child presents a comprehensive profile of bestselling and award-winning author Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), who grew up in China with her missionary parents. During the Boxer Rebellion, the family returned to America, where Pearl attended college, but according to Hilary Spurling (Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth), Pearl never felt at home, so she returned to China. In 1917, she married John Buck, a Presbyterian missionary like her father, and the couple had one child, Carol, whose developmental disabilities placed her in special schools and institutes. Although the Bucks survived the siege of Nanking, they lost everything, including Pearl's first novel. But her second, The Good Earth, would win the 1932 Pulitzer Prize. President Nixon would later credit her for opening a door between America and China. Pearl's marriage to John, unfortunately, was unhappy and did not last. Following a divorce, she married her editor, Richard Walsh, with whom she lived in Bucks County, PA, not far from Carol. According to Dr. Peter Conn (Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography), her humanist tendencies led Buck to become a civil rights activist. Concerned about the low adoption rate for mixed-race children, she also founded an adoption agency, and took on seven children herself. Despite her good works, the FBI branded her a Communist sympathizer, although she denied the claim. All the while, Buck never stopped writing, producing 80 books before her death in 1973. A solid biography, this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (K. Fennessy)