The publisher calls this "a sweeping, evocative epic of two women's intertwined fates and their search for identity."

Amy Tan’s 1989 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction multi-generational saga follows four mothers and four daughters, examining complicated family dynamics, gender, race, class, and more. In 1949, four recent Chinese immigrants meet every week to play mahjong and discuss their new lives in San Francisco. They call themselves the Joy Luck Club. While the women share their personal stories with each other, they don’t tell their daughters and their daughters in turn disregard their advice, thinking it won’t apply to their second generational American lives. Their interpersonal relationships are complex and ever changing, which means there’s so much to talk about here.

From Publishers Weekly: "If The Joy Luck Club was an astonishing literary debut, The Kitchen God's Wife is a triumph, a solid indication of a mature talent for magically involving storytelling, beguiling use of language and deeply textured and nuanced character development. Pearl Louie Brandt deplores her mother Winnie's captious criticism and cranky bossiness, her myriad superstitious rituals to ward off bad luck, and her fearful, negative outlook, which has created an emotional abyss between them. As Winnie gains insights into the motivations for other peoples' actions, she herself grows strong enough to conceal her past while building a new life in America, never admitting her deadly hidden fears."