The Valley of Amazement

The Valley of Amazement is a novel by Amy Tan. Like many of her works, it deals with mother-daughter relationship and is partly set in historical China. An excerpt from the novel was published independently as Rules for Virgins.

The Valley of Amazement
First edition
AuthorAmy Tan
GenreHistorical fiction
PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
Publication date
11/5/2013
Pages608
ISBN978-0062107312

Plot summary

In the first part of the story, Violet tells the story of growing up in Hidden Jade Path, a courtesan house in Shanghai that is run by her mother, an American woman named Lulu Minturn. Violet grows up unaware of who her father is and unsure of her mother's feelings for her.

When the Qing dynasty falls in 1912, mother and daughter are separated and the young girl is sold to a rivaling courtesan house, where she is educated by an older girl, Magic Gourd, formerly of her mother's house. The two form a lifelong relationship through Violet's marriages to former clients. Her first marriage results in a child, Flora, who is taken from Violet as a result of an unlawful marriage.

The second part of the story is told by the mother, who thinks the daughter is dead. She recalls her upbringing by remote parents in the US, her runaway with an unknown Chinese painter, and her struggle to be accepted as the mother of their two children.

Violet is eventually reunited with her mother, and eventually also her daughter Flora.

gollark: It seems that you explicitly suggested it was good because it gave more power to rural people than they would otherwise get based on population.
gollark: According to my badness determination metrics.
gollark: What I am saying is that deliberately designing an electoral system and then messing with it so that a particular group consistently gets outsized amounts of power is bad, and that it isn't particularly justified based on "cultural differences" because there are lots of culturally different groups.
gollark: There are cultural differences based on different factors, though.
gollark: There are divisions other than rural/city. Why pick that one and muck with the system to favour one side of it?

References
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