The Joy Luck Club sits somewhere between a series of short stories and a novel. The book explores the lives of four Chinese women and their Chinese-American daughters. Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the women and is a more-or-less self contained narrative.
The stories are powerful; each one showing flip sides and reasons for behaviours that we can never see in real life. They are complicated, difficult and painful love stories between each of the women and their daughters. Tan manages to create beautiful narratives which are poignant and moving without being overly sentimental or nostalgic. Whilst not culturally relatable for me; the love, frustrations and anxieties are universal. The book is a cry for us all to be better, more understanding daughters and maybe less fearful mothers.
