@article{694615,
      recid = {694615},
      author = {Tan, Amy,},
      title = {The Valley of Amazement /},
      pages = {xiv, 589 pages ;},
      abstract = {Violet Minturn, a half-Chinese/half-American courtesan who  has honed her ability to become any man's fantasy since her  start as a 'Virgin Courtesan' at the age of twelve,  struggles to find her place in the world, while her mother,  Lucia, tries to make sense of the choices she has made and  the men who have shaped her. Violet is the privileged  daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive  courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned,  Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of  chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan."  Half-Chinese and half-American, she grapples with her place  in the worlds of East and West, until she is able to merge  her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan  who excels in the business of seduction and illusion,  though she still struggles to understand who she is. Back  in 1897 San Francisco, Violet's mother, Lucia, chooses a  disastrous course as a sixteen-year-old, when her  infatuation with a Chinese painter compels her to leave her  home for Shanghai. Shocked by her lover's adherence to  Chinese traditions, she is unable to change him, despite  her unending American ingenuity. Fueled by betrayals, both  women refuse to submit to fate and societal expectations,  persisting in their quests to recover what was taken from  them: respect; a secure future; and, most poignantly, love  from their parents, lovers, and children. To reclaim their  lives, they take separate journeys, to a backwater hamlet  in China, the wealthy environs of the Hudson River Valley,  and, ultimately, the unknown areas of their hearts, where  they discover what remains after their many failings to  love and be loved. Spanning more than forty years and two  continents, this novel transports readers from the collapse  of China's last imperial dynasty to the beginning of the  Republic and recaptures the lost world of old Shanghai  through the inner workings of courtesan houses and the  lives of the foreigners living in the International  Settlement, both erased by World War II.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/694615},
}