Amy Tan, with her first blockbuster seller “The Joy Luck Club,” and I met on my kitchen floor with our four Yorkies. During subsequent best sellers her two and mine barked together on her downtown kitchen floor. Now, with the brand-new best seller “The Valley of Amazement,” she said:
“This took years writing. It came because I saw a photo in the book ‘The 10 Beauties of Shanghai’ and noted they’re wearing the same clothes as my quiet, shy, old-fashioned grandmother. I suddenly realized OMG — I’m seeing what I’m seeing? Yes. Opposite to what I thought, she’d been a courtesan.
“She left photos. I interviewed old people who knew her. This isn’t her story but, obsessed with the tale of those who made their way in those days, my historical novel deals with WWI and early WWII. My sixth book. It took me eight years creating it.
“I investigated a little village in China’s mountains. Visited every repository of images in every museum all over. Walked Shanghai’s streets. Research went on before and during three years of writing. I found answers. Inspected homes surrounded by mementoes. Found answers from people dear to me who have passed.
“I wrote into the late hours in hotel rooms, planes, my home, others’ houses. Except for 4 p.m. dog walks, I went nowhere except to use the bathroom. I learned just put something down, don’t worry about the next sentence. Revise later. Keep going. Something will click eventually.
“I didn’t go out. I spoke to no one. During heavy writing, my tax-attorney husband cooked. Brought lunch and dinner.
“I don’t have a normal life.”
Unveiling honor
Fares Rizk painted a 72-by-52 canvas of a Jordanian woman in a burqa. Stylist Pat Field unveils it (no pun intended) for fashionistas Friday at LePage New York . . . Thanks to Richard Johnson and another newspaper’s Denis Hamill for memorializing my NY Journalism Hall of Fame induction with Bill Moyers, Graydon Carter, Jimmy Breslin, Bob Herbert, Norman Pearlstine. A treasured honor.
Know how dear it was to me? My table cost me $1,850.
Pay attention to these
TV’s unreal housewives won’t shut up. Comes Phaedra Parks’ book “Secrets of the Southern Belle.” From a “Real Housewife of Atlanta” mouth . . . Larry David at OTG’s Biergarten. Alone. Inhaling oatmeal. At a beer garden . . . Tonight, West 42nd’s New Victory Theater. Michael Eisner getting honored for something . . . Opening Dec. 27 another survivor flick. We got “Gravity,” “All Is Lost,” “Captain Phillips,” now Mark Wahlberg in producer Norton Herrick’s “Lone Survivor.” I give it four oy’s. . . Bjork believes cold climate improves her music . . . Gwyneth spends every Thanksgivingeth with the Steven Spielbergseths . . . Antonio Banderas’ mommy once phoned to say his newly acquired ponytail “looks terrible” . . . If having sex outdoors, don’t — on a park bench. Could be Love Is a Many Splintered Thing . . . Patsy’s Italian restaurant launched Sinatra Select, a new bottle of whatsisname’s favorite hooch at what once was Frank’s favorite place.
Fallon, Nev. Going the wrong direction, an NYC ladyfriend’s driving a rental alone on a barren speed-limitless desert highway, where existing cars whiz at 90 mph. Navigating the bisecting island, she crosses over to the opposite correct northern lane. And gets stuck in the island’s soft desert sand. Mired, the more she spins, the deeper she sinks. Her tires are now totally submerged. Eventually a car stops. Four young bruisers approach. It’s night. Deserted.
In our neighborhood, you’d run for your life. Working for hours, digging with their hands, attaching a rope the quartet finally pulled her out. She handed them cash to say thank you. They said they’d be insulted and refused it.
Only not in New York, kids, not in New York.