The Joy Luck Club - by Amy Tan (Hardcover)

About the Book

In 1949, four Chinese women begin meeting in San Francisco for fun. Nearly 40 years later, their daughters continue to meet as the Joy Luck Club. Their stories ultimately display the double happiness that can be found in being both Chinese and American. First serials to Ladies' Home Journal, Atlantic Monthly, and San Francisco Focus.

Book Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Amy Tan's modern classic that examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters

"For me, [The Joy Luck Club] was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational."--Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians

"Brilliant."--The Washington Post Book World
"A jewel of a book."--The New York Times Book Review
"Amy Tan [is] a writer of dazzling talent."--Chicago Tribune

In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to play mah jong, remember the past, and gossip into the night. United in unspeakable loss and new hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the memories that display these women's strength, worries, and determination. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of the matriarchal ties that they believe have stymied their ability to face the uncertainties of the future.

Intimate and moving, The Joy Luck Club shows us how the inheritance of pain and unspoken secrets can lead to misunderstanding--and yet how love can still offer the promise of reconciliation.

From the Back Cover

In 1949 four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and 'say' stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club.

Review Quotes

"You see the lives of these women, and you think about all the women who came before you. . . . It's among the canon of Asian American stories that are feminist and that are true to our being."--Margaret Cho

"Brilliant . . . Powerful as myth."--The Washington Post Book World

"In the hands of Amy Tan, who has a wonderful eye for what is telling, a fine ear for dialogue, a deep empathy for her subject matter and a guilelessly straightforward way of writing, [the themes and characters] sing with a rare fidelity and beauty. She has written a jewel of a book."--The New York Times

"What it is to be American, and a woman, mother, daughter, lover, wife, sister, and friend--these are the troubling, loving alliances and affiliations that Tan molds into the sixteen intricate interlocking stories that constitute this remarkable first novel."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Amazing . . . The Joy Luck Club is dazzling because of the worlds it gives us. . . . The only negative thing I could ever say about this book is that I'll never again be able to read it for the first time."--Los Angeles Times

"Tracing the poignant destinies of two generations of tough, intelligent women, each gorgeously written page welcomes the reader and leads to an enlightenment that, like all true wisdom, sometimes brings pleasure and sometimes sadness. . . . To tell this complex story, Amy Tan, a writer of dazzling talent, has created an intricate tapestry of a book--one tale woven into the other, a panorama of distinctive voices that call out to each other over time."--Chicago Tribune

"Honest, moving, and beautifully courageous. Amy Tan shows us China, Chinese-American women and their families, and the mystery of the mother-daughter bond in ways that we have not experienced before."--Alice Walker

"Impressive . . . Describes the morass of fierce love and misunderstanding which lies between the two generations."--The New Yorker

"There aren't many books you finish and immediately want to re-read, but this is one of them. The Joy Luck Club is like a Chinese puzzle box--intricate, mysterious, and connected in a way that only seems simple. . . . Almost mythic in structure, like the hypnotic tales of the legendary Scheherazade, this fiction is also concrete. . . . There are many more stories, each detail more haunting and unforgettable than the one before, each reflecting on someone else's story."--Cosmopolitan

"Subtle and delicate . . . An intimate glimpse into a way of life and a culture seldom explored by Western literature . . . The stories read well individually, but together, with characters and circumstances so skillfully interwoven, the whole truly becomes greater than the sum of its parts."--The San Diego Union-Tribune

"The Joy Luck Club will delight readers of any generation or background with its carefully wrought stories of the physical and literal oceans, geographical, cultural, generational, that both divide and unite us."--The Pittsburgh Press

"Powerful and accomplished . . . Rich in the bittersweet ambiguities of real life."--Newsday

About the Author

Amy Tan is the author of several novels, including The Joy Luck Club, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, and The Bonesetter's Daughter. She is a co-producer and co-screenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club and is on the board of American Bird Conservancy. She lives in Sausalito, California.