Amy Tan is one of the most gorgeous new
American writers presently at work. What I like
best about her work is its effortlessness, the way one detail
leads with a completely natural grace to
another detail about a young girl’s choice of wardrobe
for travel. She has stories, in other words,
a number of stories contained
within a single box perhaps a white cardboard shoebox
sitting beside another shoebox that still contains
wrapped in white tissue paper of the kind you get in stores,
a pair of glossy red shoes. The stories are on loose
sheets, they are not bound together by an obtuse plotline;
rather, they have so much in common
that they simply touch on each other & develop their own
persuasion.
The work I am up to my elbows in at present is more
centred. Tom’s story, with Tom, even indirectly,
as the constant centre of reference; and the world,
like innumerable photographs, swirls at one or another
speed or F-stop in Tom’s camera.
So Tan’s work,
listening to her read from The Kitchen God’s Wife, is more
than good art or refreshing. I am actually liberated
by watching her concentrate on the good stuff, the fresh peas,
yellow corn, soft petalled artichokes,
& she casually throws the husks over her shoulder. The
beans & the corn are as fresh as if it had just rained.