With The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan burst onto the literary scene with a story of a group of friends, mothers and daughters, a memorial, a coming together and secrets to be revealed. The mothers, here, are all Chinese immigrants, each with her own story of a life left behind, from abusive husbands, to suicide, forced marriages, and cunning escape, lost family, harrowing tales of flight from the advance of history on the placid traditional Chinese lifestyle. The daugters see themselves as American through and through, just trying to fit in with their friends, in the culture to which they were born. While they haven't had the troubles of their mothers, each is faced with her own set of obstacles, in business or love lives, and feel they are completely alone--sometimes not even seeing eye to eye with each other, let alone with their mothers, so much as they are all best friends.

Neither mothers, nor daughters, can understand one another, and constantly butt heads, even as they try to express their love; in the end, they dearly wish to come to terms, to caputre that important relationship each has come to expect and rely upon.

The loss of one of the principle members of the Joy Luck Club--Suyuan, June's mother--brings them together, and sets off the recollections. But it is Suyuan's tale from which June learns the most: the heart-wrenching story of her mother's escape from the advancing Japanese troops, in the rein of Emperor Puyi and the Kuomingtang, is the culmination of all the sorrows the women have revealed, and even worse, as June finds out. The sacrifice Suyuan had to make to get to safety leaves June with a mystery for which her friends in the Joy Luck Club have no answer, the discovery of which she must persue in order to fulfil Suyuan's last wish.

This, The Joy Luck Club, was a wonderful book, more a collection of interrelated short stories than a traditional novel, but a fine little set of tales that cling tightly to the core theme, and beautifully reveal the entire tale. It's a lovely glance at what Amy Tan had yet to present in her following works. (The movie too, though a sparser version of these tales than the full text, is excellent. If you can find it, grab it too. :)) So, do give The Joy Luck Club a try; I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

~Webmistress