Amy Tan

by E. D. Huntley

Amy Tan has established a reputation as a major novelist of not only the Asian American experience but the universal experience of family relationships. Adapting her brand of Chinese traditional talk story as a vehicle for exploring the lives of the mothers and daughters at the center of her novels, Tan allows readers to experience the lives of her characters from multiple perspectives in parallel and intersecting narratives. In this first full-length study of her work, E. D. Huntley explores the fictional worlds Tan has created in her three novels, The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, and The Hundred Secret Senses. Examining the characters, narrative strategies, plot development, literary devices, setting, and major themes, Huntley explores the rich tapestry created in each of the novels.