Amy Tan's Best Yet!

Last week, Amy Tan was scheduled to conduct a book signing of The Bonesetter's Daughter at Border's here in St. Louis. Unfortunately, she was a "no-show" due to the East Coast snowstorm. I thought I would wait to buy the book until they could reschedule the signing, but I couldn't hold out. I ended up buying the book Saturday, started reading it on Sunday and finished it Monday evening. Suffice it to say I could not put this book down! I enjoyed reading The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife, but I believe The Bonesetter's Daughter is even better.

The Bonesetter's Daughter is the story of Ruth Young and her mother, LuLing. LuLing grew up in China; Ruth is a first-generation Chinese-American. At the age of 82, LuLing is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and it becomes apparent that she is going to need round-the-clock care. As her only child, Ruth feels duty-bound to provide the care, in spite of their tumultuous relationship. Ruth's childhood memories revolve around LuLing's obsession with curses and ghosts and her constant threats of suicide.

Several years ago, LuLing gave Ruth several pages she had written in Chinese about her life in China. She started writing down what she could recall about her early life when she realized her memory was beginning to fail. Since Ruth has only a rudimentary knowledge of the language, she puts off translating the manuscript until she has a block of time to devote to it.

As a ghostwriter of self-help books, Ruth has no trouble translating other people's ideas, but finds it difficult to express herself and her needs. She has had a committed relationship with Art and his two daughters for eight years, and every year on the anniversary of the day they moved in together, Ruth loses her voice. Rather than try to figure out the cause of this recurrent laryngitis, she gives in to it by taking an annual "planned week-long retreat into verbal silence." When LuLing becomes ill, Ruth uses the illness as an excuse to leave Art and his daughters and move back into the home she and her mother shared when Ruth was growing up. There, hidden in her mother's old recliner, Ruth finds more pages of LuLing's story and decides to have the entire work translated by a professional. It is then that Ruth really begins to get to know her mother for the first time.

Tan divides The Bonesetter's Daughter into three sections: in Part I, the reader is introduced to Ruth and LuLing and learns about their relationship through Ruth's eyes. Part II is LuLing's story, told in her own words. Part III brings the reader back to present day. Ruth has come to a new understanding and appreciation of her mother, as well as of her own strengths.

Amy Tan has a remarkable talent for transcending cultural differences and bringing the reader into the story. Although the main characters are Chinese and Chinese-American, The Bonesetter's Daughter is first and foremost a universal tale of mother-daughter relationships throughout the ages. The fact that we know that some of the material is semi-autobiographical makes it even more intriguing. Separating the book into three sections made the storyline and characters easy to follow; there was never any doubt as to who was speaking and at what period of their lives. This is a book that grabs the reader from the first page and holds fast until the end - a real page-turner.