A saga of family, music, musicians, love and math - with a story within the story.  We begin in 1990 when Ai-Ming, daughter of Sparrow and Li-Ling, arrives in Toronto to live with “Ma”, recently widowed from Jiang Kai and her daughter - Li-Ling - or Marie. Ma has been reviewing her husband’s papers - and finds a chapter from The Book of Records, a chapter hand-written by Sparrow. It’s Chapter 17 - but what of the rest? Marie and Ai-Ming are talking - and Ai-Ming says “our lives are confused - and there is this heartbreak between your family and mine.” And then, Marie gets Ai-Ming to tell her the first 16 chapters of The Book of Records. Now we move back in time to the days before Mao ZeDong - to the lives of Dai-Wei, Marie, Swirl and Wen the Dreamer. 
As the book moves back and forth  through time, with the imprisonment and “re-education” of Swirl, the travels of Wen the Dreamer, Ba Lute and Big Mother Knife. The chapters move between the stories and the narrators in different points in time - somewhat mirroring the flow of a musical theme through a symphony. 
When the story gets to the Cultural Revolution - Thien’s description of the behaviors of Chinese citizens who believed they were being good citizens by mocking and beating people who did not follow the doctrines of the Gang of Four was mesmerizing. She describes the crowd-think of torturing the music professor - pouring ink on his head for “calligraphy” and then beating him. The lives of Ba Lute and He Luting changing form being revered musicians to being despised as traitors to China. Her description of the students marching to Tiananmen Square after the death of Hu Yaobang made the struggle real. 
While the circle of narration and the moving back and forth through time could be confusing, overall, well done.