Saving Fish from Drowning
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4.1 • 107 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles and The Joy Luck Club comes “a rollicking, adventure-filled story . . . packed [with] the human capacity for love” (USA Today).
“Amy Tan has created an almost magical adventure that, page by page, becomes a metaphor for human relationships.”—Isabel Allende
A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
San Francisco art patron Bibi Chen has planned a journey of the senses along the famed Burma Road for eleven lucky friends. But after her mysterious death, Bibi watches aghast from her ghostly perch as the travelers veer off her itinerary and get bogged down by cultural gaffes, tribal curses, and romantic desires. On Christmas morning, the tourists cruise across a misty lake and disappear.
With a façade of Buddhist illusions, magician’s tricks, and light comedy, even as the absurd and picaresque spiral into a gripping morality tale, Saving Fish from Drowning deftly explores the consequences of intentions—both good and bad—and the shared responsibility that individuals must accept for the actions of others.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tan (The Bonesetter's Daughter) delivers another highly entertaining novel, this one narrated from beyond the grave. San Francisco socialite and art-world doyenne Bibi Chen has planned the vacation of a lifetime along the notorious Burma Road for 12 of her dearest friends. Violently murdered days before takeoff, she's reduced to watching her friends bumble through their travels from the remove of the spirit world. Making the best of it, the 11 friends who aren't hung over depart their Myanmar resort on Christmas morning to boat across a misty lake and vanish. The tourists find themselves trapped in jungle-covered mountains, held by a refugee tribe that believes Rupert, the group's surly teenager, is the reincarnation of their god Younger White Brother, come to save them from the unstable, militaristic Myanmar government. Tan's travelers, who range from a neurotic hypochondriac to the debonair, self-involved host of a show called The Fido Files, fight and flirt among themselves. While ensemble casting precludes the intimacy that characterizes Tan's mother-daughter stories, the book branches out with a broad plot and dynamic digressions. It's based on a true story, and Tan seems to be having fun with it, indulging in the wry, witty voice of Bibi while still exploring her signature questions of fate, connection, identity and family.
