Tan's fourth novel, and her first in six years, may be her best to date. While the energy and sheer good nature of her debut The Joy Luck Club(1989) endure, this new book is candid, sensitive and often profound. As ever her theme is mothers and daughters caught between cultures; that of the mysterious Old World of China and the more transparent New World of the US. Ruth, is the self- effacing and bewildered narrator terrified by her mother's increasing loss of memory. Lu Ling is not exactly a lovable old lady, and Ruth's childhood was miserable. Now she has other problems, such as her changing relationship with her American partner's daughters. Lu Ling has decided to record her story while she can still recall it. As is true of Tan's work, the best sequences are those taking place in the past, in China. Lu Ling's guilty secret reveals as much about women's expectations as it does about herself and Ruth's tragic, forgotten grandmother.
