Should we, thought Suyuan, 'wait for death or choose our own happiness?' Now, the Chinese women in America tell their stories (but not to their daughters or to one another): in China, an unwilling bride uses her wits, learns that she is 'strong.like the wind' another witnesses the suicide of her mother and there are tales of terror, humiliation and despair. There, in the stench of starvation and death, four women told their 'good stories,' tried their luck with mah-jongg, laughed, and 'feasted' on scraps. A Chinese mother's responsibility here is to 'give my spirit.' The Joy Luck Club, begun in 1939 San Francisco, was a re-creation of the Club founded by Suyuan Woo in a beleaguered Chinese city. More than the gap between generations, more than the dwindling of old ways, the Chinese mothers most fear that their own hopes and truths-the secret gardens of the spirit that they have cultivated in the very worst of times-will not take root. Tan probes the tension of love and often angry bewilderment as the older women watch their daughters 'as from another shore,' and the daughters struggle to free themselves from maddening threads of arcane obligation.

An inordinately moving, electric exploration of two warring cultures fused in love, focused on the lives of four Chinese women-who emigrated, in their youth, at various times, to San Francisco-and their very American 30-ish daughters.

The joy luck club by amy tan