Few speakers carry a duffel bag full of dogs onto stage with them—but then, Amy Tan is far from ordinary.
Bestselling author Tan let out her two tiny canine companions following her Tuesday night speech about her writing and life. Peals of laughter rang out in Page Auditorium, as they had several times throughout the author’s talk.
Celebrated works such as The Joy Luck Club, a fictionalized account of her own life focusing on mother-daughter relationships and being Asian-American, have brought Tan unusual experiences as well as fame.
The first time she saw the “Cliff’s Notes” of her writing, Tan said, waving a copy, “I looked at this, and I said out loud, ‘But I’m not dead yet!’”
Being a contemporary author, she added, often involves being “skewered” by critics and “dissected” by readers and students. She noted that scholars tend to see depth in even meaningless patterns of her writing.
Readers often hail Tan for becoming a role model for Asian Americans and breaking down barriers for writers of color. She said, however, that her reasons for writing are less “noble,” citing her love of a challenge and a desire to work through her own confusion about how the world works.
“This basic question—how things happen—is really the genesis of many a story,” Tan said.
Becoming a fiction writer, she explained, was a lifelong journey. After beginning college as a pre-med, she became an English major and began a career as a business writer. She credited her childhood, especially her mother’s belief in fate and ghosts, with developing her creative powers.
“She imbued in me an imagination that was based in disease and disaster and death... which is terrifying when you’re a child but is great when you’re a writer,” Tan said.
Since her mother regularly decided that the family should move, Tan attended 12 different schools before going to university. This gave her a profound experience of loneliness, which she described as a common theme in fiction.
Tan said that writing, including her own, often centers on an “alienated narrator—the person who does not fit into that society—who is finding their way and who feels very alone.”
During her adolescence, Tan recounted in great detail, she endured the death of her father, a move to Switzerland and a failed relationship that ended in a drug bust.
With a touch of irony, Tan noted that she went to college on an American Baptist Scholarship awarded for “good grades and good morals.”
To conclude her talk, Tan read aloud the first page of The Joy Luck Club, which she said was actually the part of the book she wrote last. Afterwards, she took questions on topics both professional and personal.
In response to an inquiry about her next book, Tan announced that she had just completed Saving Fish from Drowning, which she summarized as a story about people who disappear while on tour in Myanmar. She said she sent the first half to her editor Monday.
“It is both the funniest book I’ve written and, I think, the most serious,” Tan said.
Tan also discussed her battle with Lyme disease. She urged sufferers to seek out a specialist in the illness, which caused lesions on her brain after going undiagnosed for four years.
“I want to prevent people from going through the devastation that so many people have gone through,” Tan said.
Students in attendance were entertained and impressed by Tan’s address.
“She reaffirmed my drive to do unconventional things in the future because she chose the path less taken,” said John Park, a junior.
Sophomore Joan Lim was also inspired. “I felt like I could identify with her in many ways,” she said.
Duke University Union Major Speakers sponsored the event, the last of its year-long series, along with the Asian Students Association and the Baldwin Scholars.
“One of the visions that I had this year for Major Speakers was to bring in more diverse speakers,” said junior Tammy Tieu, outgoing chair of the Major Speakers committee. “I think it’s definitely been a success.”
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