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About
The Author Excerpt:
Amy Tan
Amy
Tan's novels explore familial relationships against a background
of cultural and generational differences and conflicts. Tan once
remarked that although she was originally ambivalent about her ethnicity
and tried to distance herself from it, writing The Joy Luck Club
helped her discover "how very Chinese I was. And how much had stayed
with me that I had tried to deny."
The
book uses the traditional Chinese "talk story" to explore the lives
of four Chinese immigrant mothers, their four American-born daughters,
and the impact past generations have had on their relationships.
A mother-daughter relationship is also the theme of her second book,
The Kitchen God's Wife. It begins with an American-born daughter's
reluctant visit to her mother's home in Chinatown and ends with
revelations that surprise them both. In her third novel, The Hundred
Secret Senses, Tan explores sisterhood and what it means to be a
family.
As
the late Michael Dorris said in the Chicago Tribune, "Tan's characters,
regardless of their cultural orientation or age, speak with authority
and authenticity. The details of their lives, unfamiliar to most
American readers, are rendered with such conviction that almost
immediately their rules seem to become the adages and admonitions
with which we ourselves grew up."
Good
to Know
-
When she was 14, Amy Tan's father and older brother both died
of brain tumors. Shortly afterward, doctors discovered that her
mother also had a tumor, though it was benign. Anxious to escape
what she viewed as the evil influence of the family's "diseased
house," Tan's mother took her and her younger brother to live
in Europe.
- Tan completed high school at an exclusive school in Montreux,
Switzerland, where her classmates included the children of ambassadors,
princes, and tycoons-people with whom she had little in common.
Feeling alienated and realizing that "being good" had not saved
her father or brother, she went through a period of rebellion
and fell in with a drug dealer who claimed to be a German Army
deserter but who was in fact an escapee from a mental hospital.
They nearly eloped to Australia.
- Great Expectations: Amy Tan's mother expected her to be a neurosurgeon
by day and a concert pianist on the side. When she defied those
wishes by switching college majors from premed to English, her
mother refused to speak to her for six months. As part of their
later reconciliation, Tan videotaped her mother for hours as she
spoke of her past. The information played a key role in her subsequent
writing.
- Tan has worked as a language consultant to programs for disabled
children. She was also a reporter, managing editor, and associate
publisher for Emergency Room Reports (now Emergency Medicine Reports)
and a freelance technical writer for companies such as IBM, AT&T,
and Apple Computer.
- She began writing fiction (and taking jazz piano lessons) as
an antidote to her workaholic lifestyle as a freelance technical
writer. Her first efforts were short stories, one of which won
her a spot in the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, a fiction
writers' workshop. The story, "Rules of the Game," later became
part of The Joy Luck Club.
- Amy Tan's books are assigned reading in many high schools and
colleges. The Joy Luck Club was selected for the literature portion
of the 1992-93 Academic Decathlon, a national scholastic competition
for high school students.
- Her own all-time favorite books: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë,
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid,
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and the dictionary (she says she reads
lists of words as though they were stories).
Treatises and Treats
Companions
Amy
Tan: A Critical Companion by E. D. Huntley
(Greenwood Publishing, 1998). Explores Tan's first three novels-their
characters, language, plot, setting, major themes, and literary
devices.
Tan
on Tape
Amy
Tan does the reading for the audiobook versions of her novels and
children's books, earning praise from AudioFile magazine for her
"contrasting American and Chinese accents" that bring the characters
vividly to life. The tapes are available from Dove Audio (800-368-3007,
www.doveaudio.com) and other audiobook sources.
Best
of the Net
Bananafish Web Site
www.luminarium.org/contemporary/amytan
A fan page offering biographical information, book excerpts, reviews,
interviews, and schedule of upcoming appearances by the author.
Reading List
All
the Books
The Joy Luck Club, 1989
(National Book Award )
The Kitchen God's Wife, 1991
The Hundred Secret Senses, 1995
Books
for Children
The Moon Lady, 1992
The Chinese Siamese Cat, 1994
If
You Like
Amy Tan…
Try Edwidge Danticat, Cristina Garcia, Barbara Kingsolver, Penelope
Lively, Toni Morrison, and Gloria Naylor.
Other
Excerpts
top
of page
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Born
February 19, 1952, in Oakland, California, to immigrants John Yueh-han
Tan, a minister and electrical engineer, and Daisy Tu Ching Tan,
a vocational nurse
Full
Name
En-Mai (which means "Blessing of America") Tan
Education
Graduate of San Jose State University, where she earned a B.A.,
English and linguistics, 1973; and M.A., 1974. Postgraduate study
at University of California, Berkeley, and University of California,
Santa Cruz.
Family
Married Louis M. DeMattei, a tax attorney, in 1974. No children,
Tan told the New York Times, because "I remember being such an unhappy
child, and I can't guarantee that I won't do the same things my
mother did."
Homes
San Francisco's prestigious Presidio district and Manhattan
Fan Mail
c/o Sandra Dijkstra
1155 Camino del Mar
Del Mar, CA 92014
Publisher
Putnam
Best
Book to
Read First
The Joy Luck Club, her first novel and winner of the 1989 National
Book Award.
The
Joy Luck Club is so powerful, so full of magic, that by the end
of the second paragraph, your heart catches; by the end of the first
page, tears blur your vision; and one-third of the way down on page
26, you know you won't be doing anything of importance until you
have finished this novel.
-Carolyn See, Los Angeles Times
Stranger
Than Fiction…
When she isn't writing, Amy Tan can be found dressed in thigh-high
patent-leather boots performing with a band called the Rock Bottom
Remainders. Other members of the mostly author group include Dave
Barry, Roy Blount Jr., Robert Fulghum, Matt Groening, Stephen King,
Barbara Kingsolver, Al Kooper, and Dave Marsh. "The band plays music
as well as Metallica writes novels," says Dave Barry.
You can order the group's Stranger Than Fiction double CD, tour
video, and T-shirts from Don't Quit Your Day Job Records (415-284-6363,
www.dqydj.com). The T-shirts feature caricatures by Gretchen Shields,
the illustrator for Amy Tan's children's books.
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