The Kitchen God's Wife
Ratings18
Average rating3.9
Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than fifty years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose everything. And Winnie angrily determines that she must be the one to tell her daughter, Pearl, about the past--including the terrible truth even Helen does not know. And so begins Winnie's story of her life on a small island outside Shanghai in the 1920s, and other places in China during World War II, and traces the happy and desperate events that led to Winnie's coming to America in 1949.
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This book starts slower that most of Tan's other stuff, but once you get going, it's enthralling. The main characters are well drawn and likeable, similar to her characters from 100 Secret Senses. One warning, the characters that you are supposed to dislike are very dislikeable...I frequently got angry reading this book.
Second reading, 25 years after the first reading: sad, trauma upon trauma, very dark. What did I think of this as a teenager, I wonder. What tiny fingerprint did it leave on my impressionable brain?
The parts that take place in the present day (which is to say, 1980s San Francisco) really resonate with me. They even make me feel nostalgic for San Francisco.
Counting this as my China book around the world.
This book was strong, well written, and engaging. Also, very depressing but made the end even more satisfying. Winnie was absolutely someone who I completely rooted for since her story started. These immigrant mom-child books always make me grateful for my own mother (who also lived through communism) and I always find myself liking the mothers so much more than the daughters. That tidbit makes me so grateful I wasn't more of an asshole growing up. This book really resonated with me, and I'm glad I discovered Amy Tan.
