Review: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

I'm coming to you today from our NEW APARTMENT!  We got cable in this morning, and in a little while my father's coming over with his truck to help me move the bed and other pertinent pieces of furniture, so we can spend the night here.  I am so ridiculously happy to finally be in the new place...well, as much as we are, which isn't much (we have a TV in here, and a cable hook-up, and our bathroom articles, and that's...about it).

I'm irritated with myself, that I never checked out the bookshelves at our local Goodwill before.  I scored three books (all bestsellers) the other night, for $3.50 (and one was hardcover)!  I'm definitely going to be doing that more often.  Cheap (practically free) books that I love?  Hell yes!  One of these is a re-read from high school, and I'll be reviewing it today.

The Joy Luck Club takes place in San Francisco in the late 20th century.  Four Chinese women, who all emigrated to the United States as young women, have formed friendships over the years and created what is called the "Joy Luck Club".  On evenings they meet, play mah jong, and tell stories, to laugh in the face of tragedy, to forget the unspeakable pain they've endured.  When one of their number passes away unexpectedly, the elder ladies of Joy Luck band together to help her misfit daughter, Jing-Mei (or "June"), return to China to realize her mother's long-cherished wish of being reunited with the twin daughters she was forced to leave behind.

The story is not Jing-Mei's and her mother Suyuan's though.  The book is not so much a novel as a series of sixteen vignettes, told from the points of view of each mother (Lindo, Ying-Ying, An-Mei, and Suyuan -- through Jing-Mei's eyes), and each daughter (Waverly, Lena, Rose, and of course Jing-Mei).  Their vignettes chronicle the ongoing struggles between mothers and daughters -- the mothers' desire to raise their daughters with proper Chinese pride, motivation, and respect, and the daughters' struggle to find their own identities, separate from their families and their heritage.

Amy Tan focuses on the Chinese heritage and family, but she might as well be writing about any mother-daughter relationship.  The crux of the message is always the same.  The daughter needs to fly.  The mother needs to hold.  The mother-daughter relationship is tenuous, heartbreaking, difficult, and precious.  This isn't Gilmore Girls; it's real life, within these pages.  The struggle between love and independence is a tale as old as history itself, and Amy Tan's work is beautifully real.

Rating: ****