The Joy Luck Club

Description

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. 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 their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

First Sentence

My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club.

Description

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 and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club--and forge a relationship that binds them for more than three decades.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The Joy Luck ClubPenguin Books2006-01-01
• The Joy Luck ClubHardcoverPutnam's1989-01-01
• the joy luck clubg.p. putman's sons1989-01-01
• The Joy Luck ClubIvy Books1990-01-01
• El club de la buena estrellaHardcoverCírculo de Lectores1991-01-01
• The Joy Luck ClubPaperbackMinerva1994-02-01