Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir. Amy Tan
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4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2017
First published in the United States by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, in 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Amy Tan
Cover illustration by Michelle Thompson. Images by kind permission of the author.
‘One of the Butterflies’ by W. S. Merwin taken from The Shadow of Sirius (Bloodaxe Books, 2008) and reproduced by permission of Bloodaxe Books.
‘The Breaker of Combs’ was first published in Zyzzyva, October 2016.
‘The Unfurling of Leaves’ was first published in Allure magazine, November 2005, titled as ‘A Natural Woman.’
Amy Tan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780007585571
Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9780007585564
Version: 2018-09-25
For Daniel Halpern,
suddenly and finally,
our book.
Slipstream
[From the journal]
2012
You think you are oceans apart when it is really only a slipstream that you fell into by accident or inattention.
CONTENTS
Introduction – Where the Past Begins
PROLOGUE – The Breaker of Combs
I. IMAGINATION
CHAPTER ONE – A Leaky Imagination
CHAPTER TWO – Music as Muse
Quirk – Souvenir from a Dream
CHAPTER THREE – Hidden Genius
Interlude – Reorientation: Homer, Alaska
II. MEMORY IN EMOTION
CHAPTER FOUR – Genuine Emotions
CHAPTER FIVE – The Feeling of What It Felt Like When It Happened
Quirk – A Mere Mortal at Age Twenty-Five
Quirk – A Mere Mortal at Age Twenty-Six
Quirk – How to Change Fate: Step 1
III. RETRIEVING THE PAST
Interlude – The Unfurling of Leaves
Interlude – The Auntie of the Woman Who Lost Her Mind
CHAPTER SIX – Unstoppable
Quirk – Time and Distance: Age Twenty-Four
Quirk – Time and Distance: Age Fifty
Quirk – Time and Distance: Age Sixty
IV. UNKNOWN ENDINGS
CHAPTER SEVEN – The Darkest Moment of My Life
Quirk – Nipping Dog
CHAPTER EIGHT – The Father I Did Not Know
Quirk – Reliable Witness
V. READING AND WRITING
Interlude – I Am the Author of This Novel
CHAPTER NINE – How I Learned to Read
Quirk – Splayed Poem: The Road
Quirk – Eidolons
CHAPTER TEN – Letters to the Editor
CHAPTER ELEVEN – Letters in English
Quirk – Why Write?
VI. LANGUAGE
CHAPTER TWELVE – Language: A Love Story
Quirk – Intestinal Fortitude
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – Principles of Linguistics
Epilogue – Companions in the House
Acknowledgments