On the heels of Chinese Groove... I polished off a popular ethnic-social-studies book that was very popular in the 90's. A novel-turned-motion picture... this is also a book on Chinese immigration to San Francisco. I remember when it came out... I was repulsed by how they portrayed 1st generation immigrants and their children... but many years later... I can see how Amy Tan does an amazing job capturing all the stereotypes and realities in 200 pages of story-telling. Her choice of narration gets confusing and the time-skipping makes it hard to follow... but each personal story has proper pacing of less than 20 pages and while each individual story warrants a novella of their own... Amy Tan is masterful at interweaving all the movements into one symphonic construction. There are some poetic play on words and evocative descriptions of 1940's China. It's no wonder why this took the world by storm... and why so many have tried... and failed to mimic the success of our tragic author who in her own rights... bear the burden and pains of being a daughter of the ghost of the Joy Luck Club.
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