Amy Tan is the author of six bestselling novels, including The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. She has also written a memoir, The Opposite of Fate, and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa. She co-produced and wrote the Bafta-nominated film adaptation of The Joy Luck Club and wrote the libretto for the opera version of The Bonesetter’s Daughter. She has served as lead rhythm “dominatrix”, backing singer and second tambourine with the literary garage band the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose members have included Stephen King and Scott Turow. Their yearly gigs raised more than $1m for literacy programmes. Tan’s latest book is another autobiography, Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir (4th Estate, £18.99). She lives with her husband and two dogs in California and New York.
Your first memoir was published in 2004. What made you want to return to life writing? It wasn’t a conscious decision. I was between novels and I needed to write a book that could withstand interruption, because I was on a book tour. It started off as a record of emails about the process of writing between me and my editor, but that was an awful idea. It fell to pieces. Then it turned into something much more personal, about how I write and what inspires me. But once it was done I realised you shouldn’t explain the magic tricks. Writing shouldn’t be dissected and pulled apart. So I hate that this is out there. I told my editor how I felt but he persuaded me it was wonderful and I caved in. I found writing it exhilarating. But I wish it hadn’t been published.
What is the difference between your approach to memoir and fiction? Memoir is unvarnished. In fact, too much so in this case: I would have revised this book numerous more times. In fiction, I’m much more concerned about the sequence of sentences and the flow of the narrative from beginning to end. When it comes to my own life, the sequence in which I remember things is not necessarily going to be orderly for the reader. Events and memories are going to emerge according to their importance and how they shaped me.
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