Kitchen God's Wife

by Tan, Amy

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Description

Ivy Books, 1992. light wear to glossy cover. From Tan's ( The Joy Luck Club ) mesmerizing second novel, again a story that a Chinese emigre mother tells her daughter, received a PW boxed review, spent 18 weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list and was a Literary Guild and Doubleday Club main selection in cloth. 1992 From School YA-- Fans of Tan's Joy Luck Club (Putnam, 1989) will love her powerful second novel. Here she creates an absorbing story about the lives of a Chinese mother and her adult American-born daughter. Pressured to reveal to the young woman her secret past in war-torn China in the 1940s, Winnie weaves an unbelievable account of a childhood of loneliness and abandonment and a young adulthood marred by a nightmarish arranged marriage. Winnie survives her many ordeals because of the friend and strength of her female friends, the love of her second husband, and her own steadcourage and endurance. At the conclusion, her secrets are uncovered and she shares a trust/love relation with her daughter, Pearl, that was missing from both their lives. Some YAs may find the beginning a bit slow, but this beautifully written, heartrending, sometimes violent story with strong characterzation will captivate their interest to the very last page. --Nancy Bard, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA 1991 R18459-Random. Mass Market Paperback. Very Good.

Book summary

Pearl gradually comes to understand her mother Jiang Weili (Winnie) as a heroic survivor, not a troublesome anachronism, as they begin to reveal secrets about themselves to one another. Winnie tells the story of how she escaped a horrible marriage to a cowardly fighter pilot in the Sino-Japanese war and how he may or may not be Pearl's father. Meanwhile Pearl gathers the strength confide her great secret, that she has multiple sclerosis, to her mother.

Customer Reviews

  "it's beautiful, you won't regret spending your money in buying this book. you will learn many things about chinese culture."