"'Half century under Japan then half century under Kuomintang . . . too much, ' my mother would sigh and shake her head." Miah means "fate" in Taiwanese. Spanning much of the twentieth century, these linked, subtly understated stories trace the destinies of simple folk from the brutal Japanese occupation of the early twentieth century through to the "White Terror" of the exiled Chinese Mainlanders and the Kuomintang, and finally to...