The Girl Who Wrote in Silk

The Girl Who Wrote in Silk (2015) is a historical novel by Kelli Estes. It tells the story of Liu Mei Lien, a Chinese American woman from Seattle, through present-day Inara Erickson’s discovery of Mei Lien’s meticulously embroidered silk sleeve on Orcas Island, Washington. The novel features a shifting point of view that alternates between Mei Lien and Inara Erickson. The novel explores themes of The Cultural and Personal Value of History, The Historical Evolution of Womanhood, and The Generational Impact of Racism.

This guide uses the 2015 Sourcebooks Landmark paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of racism, death by suicide, and graphic violence. In particular, the source material contains racist language historically used to dehumanize people of Chinese and Asian descent.

Plot Summary

Estes interweaves two distinct narratives: The historical narrative of Liu Mei Lien in the late 19th century alternates with the present-day narrative of Inara Erickson. The novel opens with a prologue set in 1886, where Mei Lien’s father urges her to jump from the deck of a steamer off the coast of Seattle—she jumps and loses consciousness, with a vision of a monstrous yellow eye. 

The narrative jumps to the present day. Inara Erickson arrives on Orcas Island with her sister to investigate the Rothesay estate she’s inherited from her great-great-aunt Dahlia. Inara confronts her memories of her mother’s death in a car accident on the island and discovers a beautiful and ornately embroidered sleeve under a loose stair. 



In Mei Lien’s narrative, she wakes in the early morning on the day she’ll later jump from the steamer in the Prologue. The Chinese people in Seattle are being forcibly evicted from the city, forced at gunpoint to pay for and board a steamer for China. Mei Lien, her father, and Grandmother are among those rounded up. While on the steamer, Mei Lien overhears the owner of the ship ordering the captain to dump the passengers into the ocean, far enough away from land to avoid bodies washing up. When she tells her father, he gives her his money and has her jump within sight of some islands, trusting she’ll be able to swim to safety.

In the present day, Inara decides to stay on the Orcas Island over the summer, and instead of selling the estate she pitches an idea to her father, who now runs the family shipping business, to transform the estate into a boutique hotel. He’s resistant to the idea, both of the hotel and her turning down a promising job with Starbucks, but relents and agrees to help her with funding the project. While she works on the renovations, she investigates the origin of the silk sleeve. In the process of researching, she meets Daniel Chin, a professor of Chinese culture and history who takes on the project of tracing the embroidery’s history.

After jumping, Mei Lien is rescued from drowning by Joseph McElroy, a postman and farmer on Orcas Island. He brings her into his home and cares for her, but she struggles to trust any white man. After several days of his patience and kindness, she begins to trust him. When his neighbor visits, however, she hears the same voice that ordered the murder of her father and grandmother—Duncan Campbell, Inara’s great-great-great-great-grandfather. She flees the house and tries to drown herself in the ocean, but Joseph rescues her again, insisting that she stay alive and safe with him. Mei Lien stays hidden in Joseph’s cabin for weeks. She dresses like a boy and accompanies Joseph to Port Townsend in the hope of finding a job. 

While in Port Townsend, her grandmother’s body washes onto the beach, traumatizing Mei Lien. Joseph steps in and protects Mei Lien and arranges for her grandmother’s body to be treated with respect. They encounter significant anti-Chinese racism in town. After Mei Lien tells Joseph about Campbell and the steamer, Joseph proposes to Mei Lien. She argues with him, but when he kisses her she relents, her feelings for him growing stronger. They marry that day in Port Townsend and return to Orcas Island as a married couple.

In Inara’s narrative, she pursues the mystery of the silk sleeve and the hotel renovations with equal fervor. Her father intervenes in some of the renovation decisions, renegotiating the terms of her funding. She and Daniel discover the likely age of the sleeve, connecting the Seattle eviction of the Chinese to the same time period. Inara recognizes the previous name of her family’s shipping company in the research and looks at the company records. She uncovers the truth of Campbell’s murder of over 300 people in the late 19th century, and confronts her father about it. He insists she keep the family’s secret to protect all of them. He makes the continued support for the hotel project conditional on her secrecy. Meanwhile, Inara and Daniel have begun to connect romantically, but she decides to end the relationship and reclaim the sleeve to avoid exposing the secret.

Mei Lien and Joseph are married for a little over a year when their son, Yan-Tao Kenneth McElroy is born. When the islanders discover Joseph has married a Chinese woman, they fire Joseph from his position as mail carrier and generally refuse to associate with the couple. Duncan Campbell voraciously pursues their land, even threatening Mei Lien when Joseph is away from the property. 

The day Mei Lien goes into labor, Joseph gives her silk and embroidery thread that she decides to use to make a wedding robe for her son. When their son is born, Joseph’s sister Elizabeth visits with her family. Although there is significant tension between Mei Lien and Elizabeth, they find common ground in their love for Joseph. When Yan-Tao is seven, Joseph goes away to Port Townsend to get supplies, but dies in a shipwreck on the way back. Mei Lien is seriously ill and realizes she’s dying.

Inara and Daniel’s relationship progresses, but she feels increasingly guilty that she’s keeping her family’s role in Mei Lien’s tragedy a secret. Daniel discovers that Mei Lien married Joseph and that they had a son. Inara traces the ownership paperwork for Rothesay and can’t find any deed transfer between Joseph McElroy and Duncan Campbell. As a result, she worries that Campbell murdered the family to steal their land.

Mei Lien manages for a month after Joseph’s death, but recognizes the massive decline in her health. She sells the property to Campbell and asks Elizabeth to take Yan-Tao. She gives Yan-Tao the robe, missing a single sleeve that she has yet to finish embroidering.

Although Inara has taken several steps to cut costs and find additional investors, Inara’s father tells her he can’t continue with the loan, and she’ll have to sell the estate to repay it. Inara meets Daniel’s family over dinner. When they tell his mother, sister, and grandmother how they met over the silk sleeve, Inara shows them the picture Daniel has found of Yan-Tao. 

After leaving the island with Elizabeth, Yan-Tao was put into an orphanage and lived there until age 14. Daniel’s grandmother recognizes Yan-Tao as her father-in-law, Ken. She has saved a trunk of Ken’s possessions in the attic. When Daniel and Inara investigate, they find the robe with one sleeve missing and a deed to the land on which Rothesay was built. Inara invites the family to Orcas Island to see where their ancestors lived.

Mei Lien lives for 40 days after Yan-Tao leaves the island. She finishes the embroidery on the sleeve and hides it in the step that Yan-Tao had hidden his childhood treasures in. She goes to the beach and walks into the ocean, joining her husband, father, and grandmother at last.

The Chin family come to Orcas Island. In a burst of optimism, Inara asks Daniel’s mother, a chef, if she could become a partner in the hotel project. Before any paperwork is drawn up, however, Inara tells Daniel and his mother everything she knows about her family’s role in the steamer murders. Daniel breaks up with her, mostly angry at her dishonesty. She places Rothesay on the market, grieving her lost relationship and lost dream. 

While she waits, her father has a heart attack and she rushes to his bedside. He dies, but before he does he tells her to use her inheritance to continue the hotel project. He also urges her to tell her siblings about Campbell’s murder of the passengers in 1886. When she does, they agree together to expose their ancestor, apologize to the families of the victims, and do what they can to provide restitution. Daniel forgives Inara, and his mother agrees to a partnership on the hotel restaurant. The Chins arrange to have the robe put back together and put on display in the hotel lobby. The novel ends with Daniel and Inara staring out to sea, feeling a new connection to Mei Lien.