The runaway success of Amy Tan’s debut novel,The
Joy Luck Club, was the literary surprise of 1989. Fea-
turing four Chinese mothers and their four Chinese
American daughters, Tan’s work explored women’s
hardships in traditional Chinese society, the struggles
between first-generation immigrant mothers and their
often rebellious second-generation daughters, and
the daughters’ attempts to come to terms with love,
career, and personal issues in 1980’s America.
Originally, Tan conceived of her work as a series
of connected short stories that would be tied to-
gether by the Chinese game of Mahjong, which the
four mothers play as part of the regular activities of
their Joy Luck Club. However, once it was com-
pleted, the book was marketed and recognized criti-
cally as a novel, albeit one with an episodic structure.
In the novel, the idea for the club of the title origi-
nated with Suyuan Woo in China during World
War II. Suyuan brought her idea to America when
she started a new life in San Francisco. At the begin-
ning of Tan’s work, Suyuan has died recently, and
her daughter June (Jing-mei) Woo is asked to take
the place of her dead mother at the Mahjong table.
This event launches a series of stories centering on
the experiences of the eight central characters. Each
character speaks for herself, except Suyuan, whose
life unfolds through June’s memories.
Impact In 1989, American readers enthusiastically
receivedThe Joy Luck Club, propelling it onto the best
seller list ofThe New York Times, where it stayed for
over forty weeks. Readers were fascinated by the
mothers’ tales of China, where a young woman’s life
was seriously undervalued and placed at risk of harm
from callous husbands or devious mother-in-laws.
They were equally fascinated by the stories of the sec-
ond generation and the difficult mother-daughter
relationships at the novel’s heart. The rebellion of
Waverly Jong, June’s childhood rival, against her
overbearing mother struck readers, as did the hilari-
ous scene of Rose Hsu Jordan introducing her Cau-
casian fiancé Ted to her family.
Indicative of its literary impact,The Joy Luck Club
received a nomination for the 1989 National Book
Award and the National Book Critics Award; it won
the Commonwealth Gold Award and the Bay Area
Book Reviewers Award of that year. The success of
The Joy Luck Clublaunched Amy Tan on a protracted
successful literary career and also further opened
the market for Asian American authors and themes
in fiction.
Further Reading
Adams, Bella.Amy Tan.Manchester, England: Man-
chester University Press, 2005.
Bloom, Harold, ed.Amy Tan.Philadelphia: Chelsea
House, 2000.
Huntley, E. D.Amy Tan: A Critical Companion.West-
port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.
R. C. LutzSee also Asian Americans; Book publishing;
Hwang, David Henry; Immigration to the United
States; Literature in the United States.556 Joy Luck Club, The The Eighties in America
Amy Tan.(Robert Foothorap)