The Valley of Amazement, Amy Tan
The Valley of Amazement, Amy Tan
35 Rating(s)
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The Valley of Amazement

Author: Amy Tan

Narrator: Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, Amy Tan

Unabridged: 22 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 11/05/2013


Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan brings us her latest novel: a sweeping, evocative epic of two women’s intertwined fates and their search for identity—from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese villageShanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city’s most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a “virgin courtesan.” Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West—until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.Back in 1897 San Francisco, Violet’s mother, Lucia, chooses a disastrous course as a sixteen-year-old, when her infatuation with a Chinese painter compels her to leave her home for Shanghai. Shocked by her lover’s adherence to Chinese traditions, she is unable to change him, despite her unending American ingenuity.Fueled by betrayals, both women refuse to submit to fate and societal expectations, persisting in their quests to recover what was taken from them: respect; a secure future; and, most poignantly, love from their parents, lovers, and children. To reclaim their lives, they take separate journeys—to a backwater hamlet in China, the wealthy environs of the Hudson River Valley, and, ultimately, the unknown areas of their hearts, where they discover what remains after their many failings to love and be loved.Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement transports listeners from the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty to the beginning of the Republic and recaptures the lost world of old Shanghai through the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreigners living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II. A deeply evocative narrative of the profound connections between mothers and daughters, imbued with Tan’s characteristic insight and humor, The Valley of Amazement conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and obstinacy of love.

About Amy Tan

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, Saving Fish from Drowning, and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, which was adapted into a PBS Kids production. Tan was also a coproducer and coscreenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club. Her essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her work has been translated into thirty-five languages. She lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Asa on November 18, 2013

I am always astounded by reviewers who compare, always unfavorably, the book they have to some book that they feel should have been written. Many of the reader reviews I read here fall into that category. Taken on its own, The Valley of Amazement is a marvelous, nutritious and fulfilling novel, a ri......more

Goodreads review by Always on February 16, 2022

I actually really liked the book and I want to echo another reader's sentiment that this would make for a really good show or mini series. I can see why others might not have enjoyed it. The book is quite long and at times detailed in a way that might be tedious, though personally I found that aspec......more

Goodreads review by Ron on November 11, 2013

Don’t call them prostitutes. That’s the first rule of the Shanghai courtesans in Amy Tan’s exhausting new novel, “The Valley of Amazement.” Just because these women provide sex in exchange for money, they’re not prostitutes, so don’t even think that. Deception and misperception are the stock in trade......more

Goodreads review by Miss Melly on December 05, 2013

There is so much to like about this novel but ultimately it is let down by too many unlikely character motivations. The characters that Amy Tan draws for us - strong, savvy and resilient women - would simply NOT turn into nitwits overnight and make the poor decisions she depicts. If a child of yours......more

Goodreads review by Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship on November 25, 2013

I read Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses years ago and loved it; I quite enjoyed The Bonesetter's Daughter as well. I'm one of the few people on the planet who didn't much like The Joy Luck Club, but it was Tan's first novel and my reaction had more to do with the way she chose to tell the story than......more