The heroine of The Valley of Amazement, Violet, is the daughter of an American madam and a painter. If it is like that between two huge nations, Tan leaves us in no doubt that the effects at an individual level are no less complicated. The larger relationship between China and the US is an emotional one that seems to oscillate between mutual demonising and mutual romanticising, with an underside of reciprocal racial and cultural prejudice. For others, it might sometimes feel like a revisiting too far.Īmy Tan is an American writer of Chinese origin. The book has not just one problematic mother-daughter configuration, but three, each one marked by her other recurring themes: Chinese-American identity the Chinese oppression of women abandonment and the search for love. For fans of Tan's early works, this may be a welcome reprise. On the evidence of her new novel, the attempt didn't last. A my Tan once told an interviewer that after the runaway success of her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, she made an effort to get away from the theme of Chinese-American mother-daughter relationships.
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