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Donna Nurse (review date 6 November 1995)

SOURCE: A review of The Hundred Secret Senses, in Maclean's, Vol. 108, No. 45, November 6, 1995, p. 85.

[In the following review, Nurse asserts, "Kwan's dreams comprise the most skillfully realized sections of [The Hundred Secret Senses], mingling elements of gothic romance and folktale with historical chronicle."]

In Amy Tan's earlier novels, The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife, individual personal histories powerfully influence future family dynamics. Even though traditional Chinese superstitions about luck and fate shape both stories, neither work strays far from the realistic mode. In Tan's latest novel, however, ghosts replace memories as the link between past and present. With The Hundred Secret Senses, Tan ventures into the realm of spirits and reincarnation through her favorite character type: a Chinese-American woman who is ill at ease with her...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism
   1. Merle Rubin (review date 21 April 1989)
   2. Scarlet Cheng (review date Summer 1989)
   3. Robb Forman Dew (review date 16 June 1991)
   4. Elgy Gillespie (review date Summer 1991)
   5. Penelope Fitzgerald (review date 11 July 1991)
   6. Helen Yglesias (review date September 1991)
   7. Scarlet Cheng (review date Fall 1991)
   8. Walter Shear (essay date Spring 1993)
   9. Stephen Souris (essay date Summer 1994)
   10. Judith Caesar (essay date Fall 1994–1995)
   11. Bonnie Braendlin (essay date 1995)
   12. Gloria Shen (essay date 1995)
   13. Sau-Ling Cynthia Wong (essay date 1995)
   14. Claire Messud (review date 29 October 1995)
   15. Penelope Mesic (review date 5 November 1995)
   16. Donna Nurse (review date 6 November 1995)
   17. M. Marie Booth Foster (essay date 1996)
   18. Ruth Pavey (review date 16 February 1996)
3. Further Reading
4. Copyright

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