The Bonesetter's Daughter

Starred review from February 1, 2001
In its rich character portrayals and sensitivity to the nuances of mother-daughter relationships, Tan's new novel is the real successor to, and equal of, The Joy Luck Club. This luminous and gripping book demonstrates enhanced tenderness and wisdom, however; it carries the texture of real life and reflects the paradoxes historical events can produce. Ruth Young is a 40-ish ghostwriter in San Francisco who periodically goes mute, a metaphorical indication of her inability to express her true feelings to the man she lives with, Art Kamen, a divorced father of two teenage daughters. Ruth's inability to talk is subtly echoed in the story of her mother LuLing's early life in China, which forms the long middle section of the novel. Overbearing, accusatory, darkly pessimistic, LuLing has always been a burden to Ruth. Now, at 77, she has Alzheimer's, but luckily she had recorded in a diary the extraordinary events of her childhood and youth in a small village in China during the years that included the discovery nearby of the bones of Peking Man, the Japanese invasion, the birth of the Republic and the rise of Communism. LuLing was raised by a nursemaid called Precious Auntie, the daughter of a famous bonesetter. Once beautiful, Precious Auntie's face was burned in a suicide attempt, her mouth sealed with scar tissue. When LuLing eventually learns the secrets of Precious Auntie's tragic life, she is engulfed by shame and guilt. These emotions are echoed by Ruth when she reads her own mother's revelations, and she finally understands why LuLing thought herself cursed. Tan conjures both settings with resonant detail, juxtaposing scenes of rural domestic life in a China still ruled by superstition and filial obedience, and of upscale California half a century later. The novel exhibits a poignant clarity as it investigates the dilemma of adult children who must become caretakers of their elderly parents, a situation Tan articulates with integrity and exemplary empathy for both generations. Agent, Sandy Dijkstra. (Feb. 19) Forecast: With a readership already clamoring for the book, and Tan embarking on a 22-city tour, this novel will be a sure hit; its terrific sepia-tinted cover photo of a woman in old China only adds to its allure. Moreover, readers will be intrigued by Tan's hint that this story about family secrets is semi-autobiographical. The dedication reads: "On the last day my mother spent on earth, I learned her real name, as well as that of my grandmother."

June 1, 2000
The publisher having just received the manuscript at press time, there's not much to be said about Tan's new novel, except that it is being billed as a major publishing event.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2000
The same fascination with mother-daughter relationships that made Tan's debut novel, " The Joy Luck Club" (1989), so captivating drives her newest, an even more polished and provocative work. Compulsively readable and beautifully structured around three richly metaphorical themes--bones, ghosts, and ink--this novel tells the stories of three generations of women, beginning at the turn of the twentieth century in a small Chinese village, where the bonesetter, a skilled healer, defies tradition and teaches his daughter everything he knows. Intelligent and willful, she vehemently rejects the marriage proposal of the vulgar coffinmaker, who curses her, thus setting in motion a tragic sequence of events that continues to unfold a century later in San Francisco, where a Chinese American woman finally reads the memoir her mother wrote for her. Although Ruth's a ghostwriter for New Agey self-help books, the advice she formulates hasn't helped her achieve genuine intimacy with her live-in boyfriend or cope with her argumentative mother, who has long been haunted by the ghost of a woman she calls Precious Auntie. Widowed since Ruth was a toddler, China-born and -raised calligraphy artist Luling still speaks stilted English in spite of decades of California life, and now she appears to be afflicted with Alzheimer's. As Ruth moves back home to care for Luling, she is assailed by memories of her own difficult childhood, then discovers that Precious Auntie, the bonesetter's daughter, is actually her grandmother. As Tan tells the spellbinding stories of these three strong, self-sacrificing women in this lucent novel of deep feelings and gentle humor, she weaves in stripes of vivid Chinese history, including the discovery of Peking Man, ponders what's bred in the bone, and celebrates the preservation of family history as an act of love and a conduit for forgiveness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)