The Joy Luck Club

By Amy Tan, Ronald Bass, Jordi Fibla, Tsai Chin, Wayne Wang, Gwendoline Yeo

Subjects: Madre e hija, Madres e hijas, Sagas, Chinese Americans, San Francisco (Calif.), Chinese American women, Women, Mothers and daughters, fiction, Reading level-grade 10, Novela, Chinese American women in fiction, Fiction, family life, general, Chinese americans, Loss (psychology), Death, Chinese american women, Literature, Asian americans, Open_syllabus_project, Chinese Americans in fiction, Chinese american, Mother and child, San francisco (calif.), Littérature américaine, Chinese americans in fiction, Fiction, sagas, Reading Level-Grade 12, Friendship, fiction, Large type books, Reminiscing in old age in fiction, Fictional works [publication type], Mothers and daughters in fiction, FICTION, Female friendship in fiction, Chinese American families, Reading level-grade 12, Chinese americans, fiction, Female friendship, Literary, Asian Americans, Autographed books, Fiction, family life, Mothers, Novela hogareña, open_syllabus_project, San francisco (calif.), fiction, Reading level-grade 11, Fiction, Societies and clubs, Mothers in fiction, Chinese American, Drama, Asian American, Reading Level-Grade 11, Chinese american women in fiction, California, Reminiscing in old age, Asian american, Fiction, psychological, Reading Level-Grade 10, Loss (Psychology), Women in fiction, Ficción, Auteurs d'origine chinoise, Mothers and daughters, Fictional Works [Publication Type], Mujeres chino-americanas, Chinese american families

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.