The Valley of Amazement

The Valley of Amazement, a work of historical fiction first published in 2013, is the sixth novel by author Amy Tan. This guide refers to the Kindle Edition for citations. Tan primarily writes about the complexity of the mother-daughter bond and about the experience of being Chinese American. In The Valley of Amazement, a mother and daughter recount their lives in early-20th-century Shanghai and San Francisco.

Tan’s debut novel, The Joy Luck Club (1989), became a bestseller and garnered multiple awards for its author. Her other works include The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), The Hundred Secret Senses (1995), The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001), and Saving Fish from Drowning (2005). Adaptations of her work include a film of The Joy Luck Club made in 1993 and an opera adaptation of The Bonesetter’s Daughter in 2008.

Plot Summary

The Valley of Amazement is told from the first-person perspectives of Violet and Lulu. Violet narrates the story of her life beginning as a seven-year-old in 1905 Shanghai through her adulthood until 1939. Three chapters late in the book are narrated by her mother, Lulu, as a 16-year-old in 1897 San Francisco through her move to Shanghai the same year. She also narrates her return trip to San Francisco in 1912 and subsequent events in 1914.

Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of Lulu Minturn—a woman who owns the best courtesan house in Shanghai. Violet is exposed early in life to the high-end sex trade. Aside from its promise of romance and fantasy for male patrons, Lulu’s social club also acts as a meeting place where she orchestrates profitable business deals for her wealthy customers.

Violet feels neglected and unloved because her mother spends so much time running the business. After Violet’s father returns to Lulu’s life and attempts a reconciliation, Lulu decides that she and Violet must go to America to reestablish ties with his side of the family. Lulu’s lover, Fairweather, makes all the travel arrangements. He sends Lulu to board the ocean liner, but he sells Violet to a courtesan house and turns Lulu’s business over to a Chinese gang to repay his gambling debts.

The rest of the novel examines Violet’s resilience in coping with the changes life has forced upon her, as well as her search for lasting love to compensate for what she perceives as her mother’s abandonment. For her part, Lulu deals with many of the same issues. Both women learn to distinguish between men with artistic temperaments who only promise love and those who deliver on that promise. Once these lessons are learned, Violet and Lulu can move forward to establish a stable emotional relationship with one another and with Violet’s estranged daughter, Flora. The book ends with Violet bidding farewell to her younger self, who believed she’d been abandoned. As an adult, Violet learns to appreciate the love that surrounds her in the present moment.