Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The Hundred Secret Senses

1995, 1996 Ivy Books edition
Amy Tan
The Hundred Secret Senses
Original price $6.99, purchase price 79 cents
Worn paperback with split spine
B-

Instead of focusing on mothers and daughters, Tan this time presents two half-sisters, both born in the Year of the Monkey (1944 and '56, while I was born in '68), the elder in China, the younger in the U.S.  Kwan tells stories (mostly of her past life in the 1860s) from the time Olivia is 6 to roughly the present ('94 I think, since Kwan turns 50).  She also tries to reconcile Olivia with her estranged husband, Simon, leading to the three of them going to China together.

I was less drawn in to this book than to the earlier Tan novels, although to balance that there wasn't anything as horrific as in either of those.  That's part of why I haven't read any of her later works, along with my just not reading many new novels this century.

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