Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group,
2006.
St. John’s University School of Law. “Lawrence Jo-
seph.” Available online. URL: http://new.stjohns.
edu/academics/graduate/law/faculty/profiles/Jo-
seph. Accessed September 30, 2006.
Majaj, Lisa Suhair. “Arab-Americans and the Mean-
ings of Race.” In Postcolonial Theory and the United
States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature, edited by
Amritjit Singh and Peter Schmidt, 320–327. Jack-
son: University of Mississippi Press, 2000.
Smith, Dinitia. “The Arab-American Writers: Un-
easy in Two Worlds,” New York Times, 19 February
2003, p. E1.
Eric G. Waggoner
Journey, The Indira Ganesan (1990)
Novelist INDIRA GANESAN’s writing revolves around
the conflict between two cultures and the way her
characters learn to create a fine line between tradi-
tional and contemporary society. Her first novel,
The Journey, chronicles the actual and philosophi-
cal journey of 19-year-old Renu Krishnan. Having
lived in America for 10 years while her parents
pursued careers in the sciences, she finds herself
returning to the mythical island of Pi with her
mother and sister to attend the funeral of her fa-
vorite cousin, Rajesh. Because they were born on
the same day, the families have referred to them
as twins, a fact that used to bring her great joy and
one that now threatens to engulf her. In spite of
her already deepening sense of grief, Renu is sub-
jected to compounded shocks.
During the funeral preparations, Renu finds
herself the object of island gossip. A superstitious
people, the islanders believe that since Renu’s
cousin, Rajesh, died by drowning, Renu will be
the victim of death by fire. To add to her sense of
desperation, Renu’s mother attempts to get her
to agree to an arranged marriage. As she retreats
into herself, other events constitute the focus of
the novel. Renu’s sister, Manx, a very liberated 15-
year-old, meets and dates an American expatriate
named Freddie. Eventually Renu returns to tradi-
tional ways, much to the confusion of her sister.
This story is about journeys from many angles. It
is a reflection of the challenges that confront any
young female but focuses on the cultural differ-
ences of females in India and, specifically, on the
way Renu deals with those differences.
Ganesan also creates interesting turns in the
story, mostly secondary stories that are interwo-
ven within the tightly defined world that belongs
to Renu. Her grandfather, once a stern taskmaster
for both Renu and her cousin Rajesh, is bedrid-
den when Renu arrives. He, too, goes through his
own metamorphosis and moves beyond infirmity
to make a pilgrimage alone, a fact unknown to the
other members of the family and one that throws
them into a panic. There is also her Uncle Adda,
who suffers from his memory of his beloved Span-
ish wife and the tragedy that befell them. Renu
learns the truth about the mystery of their mar-
riage and their boy, Kish. Renu also learns that
things are not always what they seem and that
sometimes choices are made because they create a
world that is easier to navigate. She finds that the
human heart is stronger than she could have imag-
ined and sometimes family is not necessarily the
people who share the same blood. Renu easily ac-
cepts the move back to tradition and culture, while
Manx abhors the change in her sister and remains
steadfast in her Americanism.
Anne Marie FowlerJoy Luck Club, The Amy Tan (1989)
In AMY TAN’s internationally best-selling and well-
reviewed first novel, the story revolves around
four sets of mother-daughter pairs. The corre-
spondences and continuities between the immi-
grant Chinese mothers and their first-generation
American daughters overshadow the superficial
differences that each pair experiences as they learn
to deal with the intricacies of negotiating two very
different cultures. Originally conceived by Tan as
a series of short stories, the intertwined lives of
the mothers and daughters form a fully fashioned
novel that won critical and popular acclaim.
The novel is divided into four sections, and
the stories in each section are linked thematically.Joy Luck Club, The 141