num_pages: 352
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.
language: English
title: The Joy Luck Club
titlecomplete: The Joy Luck Club
characters: Suyuan Woo, Ying-Ying St. Clair, Lindo Jong, Waverly Jong, Rose Hsu Jordan, Lena St. Clair, June Woo, An-Mei Hsu
genres: Asia, Historical Fiction, Historical, Adult Fiction, Literature, Classics, Adult, China, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 674701
places: China, San Francisco, California
awards: awardedAt: 599644800000
name: California Book Award
category: Fiction (Gold), awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Northern California Book Awards
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Fiction
publisher: Ballantine Books