Novelist Lisa See was born in France and lives in Los Angeles, but her heart belongs to China.

See, 61, grew up among Chinese-American relatives, where her great-grandfather was once Chinatown’s godfather and patriarch.

“I probably have about 400 relatives on the Chinese side,” said See, whose father was a quarter Chinese. “I may not look very Chinese, but I grew up in Chinese culture and experiencing Chinese tradition.”

That lineage, coupled with her fascination of the past, has led See to pen a number of novels involving history’s unheard — people whose stories are part of history, though not necessarily shared in textbooks.

She debuted with “On Gold Mountain,” a 1995 memoir about her family, and went on to pen novels such as “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” set in the 19th century and steeped in “nu shu ,” or “women’s writing,” the ancient written language of isolated Chinese women written on fans and elsewhere as a means to communicate with one another.

See appears Thursday at Bend High School as part of the Deschutes Public Library system’s Author! Author! series, and she said she plans to discuss “how that experience of writing … about my family really set the pattern for everything that I’ve come to write since,” she said.

“I’ll talk a fair amount about my research and how I do it and my approach to — I hate to say ‘history’ because sometimes that scares people. They think, ‘Oh no, it’s going to be so serious.’”

See, who has a knack for spinning entertainment from history, will concentrate on her most recent novel, “China Dolls,” which was inspired by Asian-American entertainers of the 1930s and ’40s who performed on the so-called “Chop Suey Circuit.”

“This was a time when there were these Chinese-American nightclubs,” See said. Performers “were billed as the Chinese Frank Sinatra, the Chinese Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the Chinese Houdini … the Chinese fill-in-the-blank.”

During World War II, “many of those performers who were billed as the Chinese this or that were actually Japanese-American, not Chinese,” she said. In her novel, three women on the circuit see their friendship threatened after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The author travels far and wide in researching her books, including obscure corners of China where she’s been among the first-ever foreign visitors. But See stayed closer to home to research “China Dolls,” visiting elderly folks whose families sometimes didn’t know of their pasts as entertainers.

“For a lot of them, they just hadn’t talked about it (to) their families or at work, so it really was, for them, a lot of fun to tell me these stories,” she said.

Though not necessarily told over dinner, personal experiences “have such an impact on families, and how a family sort of moves through that history,” she said. “We tend to learn history … in terms of wars and dates. That’s kind of the front line — presidents and generals.

“But if you take one step off the front line, who’s there? It’s women and children and families, and they’re there every step of the way. They’re being affected by that history, just as much as the people on the front line. And they’re the ones who sort of have to get through the day and sort of live through that. I think novels are a really interesting way to explore pieces of hidden history, or forgotten history, because through these characters, you can sort of experience that — and you learn some stuff along the way.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com