Saving Fish from Drowning

Publisher Marketing: A pious man explained to his followers: It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. Don t be scared, I tell those fishes. I am saving you from drowning. Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes. - Anonymous Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers as they come to discover that the Burma Road is paved with less-than-honorable intentions, questionable food, and tribal curses. And then, on Christmas morning, eleven of the travelers boat across a misty lake for a sunrise cruise - and disappear. Drawing from the current political reality in Burma and woven with pure confabulation, Amy Tan s picaresque novel poses the question: How can we discern what is real and what is fiction, in everything we see? How do we know what to believe? Saving Fish from Drowning finds sly truth in the absurd: a reality TV show called Darwin s Fittest, a repressive regime known as SLORC, two cheroot-smoking twin children hailed as divinities, and a ragtag tribe hiding in the jungle - where the sprites of disaster known as Nats lurk, as do the specters of the fabled Younger White Brother and a British illusionist who was not who he was worshipped to be. With her signature idiosyncratic, sympathetic characters, haunting images, historical complexity, significant contemporary themes, and suspenseful mystery (Los Angeles Times), Amy Tan spins a provocative and mesmerizing tale about the mind and the heart of the individual, the actions we choose, the moral questions we might ask ourselves, and above all, the deeply personal answers we seek when happy endings are seemingly impossible." Review Citations: New York Times 10/01/2006 pg. 28 (EAN 9780345464019, Paperback) Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 222 (EAN 9781597377324, Compact Disc) Library Journal 01/01/2006 pg. 172 (EAN 9781597377324, Compact Disc) Library Journal 01/15/2006 (EAN 9781597377324, Compact Disc) Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 222 (EAN 9781597377317, Compact Disc) Publishers Weekly 03/06/2006 pg. 68 (EAN 9781597377317, Compact Disc) Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 222 (EAN 9781597377379, Compact Disc) Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 222 (EAN 9781597377331, MP3 CD) Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 222 (EAN 9781597377300, Analog Audio Cassette) Kliatt 05/01/2006 pg. 49 (EAN 9781597377300, Analog Audio Cassette) Ingram Advance 10/01/2005 pg. 222 (EAN 9781597377294, Analog Audio Cassette) Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2005 pg. 813 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) Publishers Weekly 08/29/2005 pg. 34 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Booklist 09/01/2005 pg. 8 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Ingram Advance 11/01/2005 pg. 38 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) Entertainment Weekly 10/21/2005 pg. 78 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) People Weekly 10/31/2005 pg. 53 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) New York Times 10/16/2005 pg. 22 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) Library Journal 10/01/2005 pg. 70 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2006 pg. 10 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) School Library Journal 02/01/2006 pg. 158 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2006 pg. 906 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 902 (EAN 9780399153013, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Tan, Amy AMY TAN is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, Saving Fish from Drowning, and two children's books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, which was adapted into a PBS television series. Tan was coproducer and coscreenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club and wrote the libretto for The Bonesetter's Daughter opera. Her essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her work has been translated into thirty-five languages. She lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York.