The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
G.P. Putnam's Sons
On its release, Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club ignited a flowering of Asian-American writing on intergenerational themes, and a wave of interest in the genre that is still rippling through the world of publishing today.
Hailed by critics and readers for its poetic lyricism, tenderness and insights into the frailty and durability of family relationships this fantastically detailed tapestry reveals the stories of four remarkable mothers and their children. As the characters' personal histories weave through the late 20th century, the reader marvels at their spirit and the power of a mother's love.
The story opens in San Francisco in 1949, when four Chinese women bond over yum cha and mahjong, and share their respective tales of loss and hope. The big decisions faced by each Joy Luck Club member are always agonising or heart-breaking.
The original founder of the club is Suyuan Woo, who started an earlier association with the same name in Guilin to buoy the spirits of herself and her friends during the the second world war, a conflict that took her husband's life. Woo dies before the novel's chronological starting point, and so her history is pieced together by her American-born daughter, Jing-mei.
Information gaps drive the flow. The daughters try to live their lives, while missing many of the familial fragments that their mothers hold onto from their rarely-spoken-of lives in China. Meanwhile, the mothers seek love and filial piety from their daughters, but the cultural divide widens the generation gap. As each member of this club reveals her secrets, and questions the mysteries of the past, the narrative threads become ever-more entwined.