Tan collects laughter, joy and luck in book of essays

Amy Tan’s engaging first book of nonfiction, “The Opposite of Fate,” is aptly subtitled “A Book of Musings.” In more than 30 essays collected here, the author muses on a wide range of subjects -- some personal, some traumatic, many humorous. She proves adept at self-deprecation and seems to delight especially in dispelling popular notions of the writing life.

Tan begins by hilariously describing the perils of being a well-known author. She recounts the deadliest (but always earnest) questions she has received on book tours, including, “What would you like written on your tombstone?” and “Are you loaded?” Having written bestsellers such as “The Joy Luck Club” (made into a 1993 film) and “The Kitchen God’s Wife,” both of which are required reading for many a high school and college literature class, she has been immortalized in Cliffs- Notes, along with such “classic” authors as Conrad and Joyce.

Tan recalls discovering this fact while waiting to give a reading at a bookstore. As she flipped through the CliffsNotes version of “The Joy Luck Club,” “I saw that my book had been hacked apart, autopsied and permanently embalmed into chapter-by-chapter blow-by-blows: plot summaries, genealogy charts, and -- ai ya! -- even Chinese horoscopes.” More astonishing were the thought-provoking discussion questions at the end of the booklet: “ ‘Which daughter in the book is most like Amy Tan? Why?’ What luck. This very question was often asked of me in interviews, and I had no idea what to say.”

In a piece titled “Persona Errata,” Tan describes further pitfalls of being a famous writer, such as being promoted on websites offering summaries of her books (and all for the bargain-basement price of $25.99). “Do you need a quality paper on Amy Tan -- today, tomorrow, or next week?” asks one site.

As she sets the record straight about herself, lovingly describing the profound influence of her late mother and pondering ideas about fate, coincidence, luck and faith, Tan also tells the story of her life.

Because these pieces were written at different times and for different occasions -- some were published previously in such publications as Harper’s Bazaar, Salon and the New Yorker -- the range of tone makes for a more interesting read than the average straightforward memoir.

The hodgepodge format does lend a certain unevenness to the collection -- some pieces seem rather too slight for inclusion -- but the liveliness of the best pieces more than compensates for the weaker ones, which are few. Tan offers the kind of intimate insight into her sensibility, her history, her happy marriage and the writing process that could be told only by her. Such stories could never be drawn out in an interview.

In any case, Tan is well aware that parts of “The Opposite of Fate” seem more like casual conversational pieces than formal essays, as she notes in her introduction. She mentions that some of the short pieces are “particular to the desperate hour in which I wrote them,” such as the late-night eulogy she composed for her beloved editor, Faith Sale, who died in 1999. Though brief, it is one of the collection’s most poignant pieces.

In it, Tan writes that Sale was wrong about her in one respect: “She believed that writing came easily to me, that words poured onto the page with the ease of turning on a faucet, and that her role was to help me adjust the outpouring toward the right balance. That belief had so much to do with her confidence in me.” Tan adds that perhaps the ultimate role of both an editor and a friend is “to have confidence in another person, that the person’s best is natural and always possible, forthcoming after an occasional kick in the butt.” Tan makes clear that she didn’t set out to become a writer and certainly not a celebrated one. For many years she had no inkling that such a life was in store for her. Instead, she says she simply loved writing for its own sake; loved words, metaphors and make-believe and adored reading fiction. What comes across throughout this collection is a person who reveres language deeply. Tan also seems to be someone who treasures her connections with friends and family and the gift of life itself.

Near the end of this book, Tan writes that the best stories “do change us. They help us live interesting lives.” Those she tells in this candid, funny, unpretentious collection serve as a reminder that we make our own luck, that our own life stories are as interesting as we perceive them to be.