Aloha Everyone,
When her Joy Luck Club novel was first published in 1989, it was such a gripping book I recall finishing it in one sitting.
Joy Luck Club was about four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco. They became Amy Tan and her generation’s American born children’s extended families. The parents played the Chinese game of mahjong for money, feasting, gossiping and to talk about business.
Made it to the New York Times Best Seller list, The Joy Luck Club was the first book about immigration from foreign countries, inter-generational conflict of old-world value and that of adopted Westernized society. Amy Tan spearheaded this previously untouched topic with candor and intimacy.
Amy Tan is a complex, accomplished person.
When she was 15, her father and older brother died of brain tumors within 6 months of each other. Her Mother decided to move to a place with a clean environment. Amy finished high school at the Institute of Monte RosaIn Montreaux in Switzerland.
Amy Tan’s personal life reads like a novel. For example:
She is a member of the literary rock band, The Rock-Bottom Remainders. Her band mates include Dave Barry, Stephen King and Maya Angelou. She sings off key but says she can express herself and get out of her comfort zone.
Amy Tan has appeared in The Simpsons as herself.
Amy Tan and her husband, Lou DeMattei, have been married for more than 20 years. They reside in San Francisco in a house they designed where they could live comfortably into old age.
Amy Tan is a skilled artist, an illustrator of nature.
Amy Tan’s Chinese name “An Mei” means Blessing from America.
Aloha -- Cathi
