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Author Tan, Amy, author.

Title Where the past begins : a writer's memoir / Amy Tan.

Publication Info. New York : Ecco, [2017]
©2017

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Avon Free Public Library - Adult Department  92 TAN    Check Shelf
 Berlin-Peck Memorial Library - Biographies  92 BIOGRAPHY TAN    Check Shelf
 Bloomfield, Prosser Library - Adult Department  BIOG. TAN, A.    Storage
 Bristol, Main Library - Non Fiction  B TAN, AMY    Check Shelf
 Bristol, Manross Branch - Non Fiction  B TAN    Check Shelf
 Canton Public Library - Adult Department  BIO TAN    Check Shelf
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  BIOGRAPHY TAN    DUE 04-20-23 Billed
 East Hartford, Raymond Library - Adult Department  B TAN AMY T    Check Shelf
 Enfield, Main Library - Biographies  B TAN    Check Shelf
 Farmington, Main Library - Adult Department  B TAN, AMY    Check Shelf

Edition First edition.
Description x, 357 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Summary "From New York Times bestselling author Amy Tan, a memoir on her life as a writer, her childhood, and the symbiotic relationship between fiction and emotional memory"-- Provided by publisher.
"In Where the Past Begins, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement Amy Tan is at her most intimate, revealing the truths and inspirations that underlie her extraordinary fiction. By delving into vivid memories of her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt in her journals, and heartbreaking letters to and from her mother, she gives evidence to all that made it both unlikely and inevitable that she would become a writer. Through spontaneous storytelling, she shows how a fluid fictional state of mind unleashed near-forgotten memories that became the emotional nucleus of her novels. Tan explores shocking truths uncovered by family memorabilia--the real reason behind an IQ test she took at age six, why her parents lied about their education, mysteries surrounding her maternal grandmother--and, for the first time publicly, writes about her complex relationship with her father, who died when she was fifteen. Suffused with candor and characteristic humor, Where the Past Begins takes readers into the idiosyncratic workings of her writer's mind, a journey that explores memory, imagination, and truth, with fiction serving as both her divining rod and link to meaning."--Jacket.
Contents Prologue. The breaker of combs -- I: Imagination. A leaky imagination ; Music as muse ; Souvenir from a dream ; Hidden genius ; Reorientation: Homer, Alaska -- II: Memory in emotion. Genuine emotions ; The feeling of what it felt like when it happened ; A mere mortal at age twenty-five ; A mere mortal at age twenty-six ; How to change fate: step 1 -- III: Retrieving the past. The unfurling of leaves ; The auntie of the woman who lost her mind ; Unstoppable ; Time and distance: age twenty-four ; Time and distance: age fifty ; Time and distance: age sixty -- IV: Unknown endings. The darkest moment of my life ; Nipping dog ; The father I did not know ; Reliable witness -- V: Reading and writing. I am the author of this novel ; How I learned to read ; Splayed poem: the road ; Eidolons ; Letters to the editor ; Letters in English ; Why write? -- VI: Language. Language: a love story ; Intestinal fortitude ; Principles of linguistics ; Companions in the house.
Subject Tan, Amy.
Novelists, American -- 20th century -- Biography.
Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary.
LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Composition & Creative Writing.
Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)
Genre/Form Autobiographies.
ISBN 9780062319296 (hardback)
0062319299 (hardback)
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