but simultaneously embraces it as a metaphor for
her identity.
Holy Prayers attracted significant popular at-
tention and went through several printings. Crit-
ics nationwide were divided in their appreciation
of the work, both on stylistic grounds and in rela-
tion to the author’s views on interracial marriage.
Kathleen’s publisher, gratified by the book’s suc-
cess, solicited her to write another, prompting her
to work on a novel set in Japan. “A Fit in Japan,”
Kathleen’s satirical tale set in Tokyo’s foreign col-
ony, which may have been an excerpt from the
novel, appeared in a literary anthology in mid-
- However, between her job and child-care
responsibilities, Kathleen found it difficult to find
time to write and abandoned the project. In 1934
the Eldridge family moved to Washington. After
lecturing at George Washington University on her
impressions of Japan, she began a book on Japa-
nese culture. However, she lacked confidence and
could not find the drive or time to work. Instead,
she devoted the rest of her life to caring for her
family. In the 1940s, Kathleen and her husband
formed the Lenma society, a branch of the Gen-
eral Semantics Movement. In the late 1960s, she
worked with the Washington Forum, a public af-
fairs discussion group. Holy Prayers, long forgotten
at the time of the author’s death in 1979, has since
been reclaimed as a significant text by both Asian-
American and Hapa studies scholars.
Greg RobinsonTan, Amy (1952– )
Her first novel, The JOY LUCK CLUB, was published
in 1989 and made into a major motion picture in
1993; thus Amy Tan began her distinguished career
as a contemporary author who explores the com-
plex relationship between mothers and daughters.
She revisits the themes of familial and genera-
tional continuities and misunderstandings in each
of her subsequent novels, including The KITCHEN
GOD’S WIFE (1991), The HUNDRED SECRET SENSES
(1995), and The BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER (2001).
Compounding the intricacies inherent in each
mother-daughter story is the additional factor of
immigration: Each mother is a Chinese immigrant
and each daughter is a first-generation American,
both of whom must negotiate linguistic and cul-
tural differences to understand and come to terms
with the other.
Fueling each of these novels is the challeng-
ing relationship Tan experienced with her own
mother, Daisy (Tu Ching) Tan, as well as the fas-
cinating and heart-wrenching experiences of her
mother and extended family, both in China and
in the United States. Daisy and her husband, John
Yuehhan Tan, settled in the San Francisco area
in 1949, the year of the Communist takeover in
China. What the Tans left behind in China, their
daughter Amy would years later reinvent in fiction
in the United States. Tan’s maternal grandmother,
Jing-mei, lived in exile with her daughter Daisy
on an island off the coast of Shanghai because
the widowed woman had been raped and forced
to become a rich man’s concubine. After Jing-mei
gave birth to the man’s son, a higher-ranking wife
claimed the boy as her own, and Jing-mei ate a
deadly amount of raw opium. Tan’s grandmother’s
story became the basis for An-mei Hsu’s narrative
in The Joy Luck Club and also informs parts of her
other novels. Nine-year-old Daisy, who had wit-
nessed the suicide of her mother, was cared for by
relatives and then entered an arranged marriage.
Daisy endured years of physical and mental abuse,
including rape and being forced to sign fake di-
vorce papers with a gun to her head. She finally left
this abusive marriage and three daughters, whom
she was forced to give up upon her divorce. She
was not reunited with them until 1978. Daisy’s
tragic story is told most fully—though in a fiction-
alized format—in The Kitchen God’s Wife and, to a
lesser degree, in other novels.
Amy Tan’s mother had been a nurse in China,
and her father was an electrical engineer, but both
took on new careers in their new country. Her
mother became a full-time homemaker and her
father gave up a scholarship at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology to become a Baptist min-
ister. Tan was raised in a household of conflicting
religious opinions—overtly, they were Christians,
but her mother never lost her strong belief in Chi-
nese mysticism, often asking her daughter to chan-Tan, Amy 281