![]() ![]() Spanning more than 40 years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement takes readers 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. Back in 1897 San Francisco, meanwhile, 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. 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. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. ![]() ![]() In her first novel in eight years, The Valley of Amazement ( HarperCollins 2013), Amy Tan has woven an evocative narrative about the profound connections between mothers and daughters, a theme that returns readers to the territory of Tan's breakout novel The Joy Luck Club. (Rick Smolan/Against All Odds Productions) "The Valley of Amazement" (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2013) by Amy Tan (R). ![]()
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