Amy Tan: First and Latest

In spite of an 18-year gap between her first book, The Joy Luck Club and her latest, Saving Fish from Drowning, in my personal knee-jerk opinion, both books qualify as "Vintage Amy Tan."

The Joy Luck Club has multiple characters, and yet it is autobiographical at the same time. We sort of pick up which character is Amy Tan, herself. O.K. so far? Yet there is so much woven into a complex web of overlapping destinies, that for me, anyway, it just stands to reason that this first best seller represents an emerging genre, at least for books like these in the English language.

And while it may be premature to come right out and say this, my own gut reaction is to at least hazard a guess that a whole bunch of North American Latino authors read The Joy Luck Club, and thought: Dam*, I can do this, too!

And then went on to do exactly that, but no! What about Rudolfo Anaya, and his Bless Me Ultima? If Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club came out in 1987, when did Bless Me Ultima first see the light of day?

What's that you say? 1972? Arghhh.. back to the drawing board, then !

Saving Fish from Drowning is just like The Joy Luck Club in that once you're in, you will most likely not want to quit until you've read it through to the end.

I'm tempted to say that Amy Tan makes a cameo appearance as someone who is her mirror image early in this story of twelve swing'in ding-a-lings who just like to be do'in it right, all day long and into the night, even in the Burmese jungle, until they come slap up against something called reality, moreover, the kind that bites.

But, again, I don't what to spoil anyone's fun by saying which minor character strikes me, at least, as Amy Tan herself.

Both of these books are a good read.