Oldie for these times, but I'm glad I finally found it

The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan

Mothers and daughters, oh what an almighty mess they weave!  I thought it was going to be a story of four grown women who gather around a card table to chat about their families and their lives in America.  Not a bit--it was loosely based on that idea, but only for the a briefest of episodes. Critics should have described it like this:

What do you tell the daughter of your long-time friend after her mother has died and she is preparing to journey to China to meet her two lost sisters?  The sisters will want to know about their mother, but what can she tell them?  When does a daughter ever really know her mother?

Daughters think they have a monopoly on secrets, but mothers keep a whole lot more. Sometimes it's things as mundane as disappointment in marriage or loss of a career. Other times it's lost children. Flight from Japanese bombers. Manipulating yourself out of a hopeless marriage. Feelings of inadequacy that never gives up.

So, the three friends of the mother, and the mother herself, end up telling their stories.  But then--surprisingly to me--the daughters do also.  The author uses a clever precept as a background on which she paints a multidimensional portrait of eight people, their past history and present reality, all in a mix.  Overlaying the stories in twisted threads, brightly colored but distinct if you look closely enough.  But don't get me wrong--it's not a jumble.  Each story is coherent and satisfying. Endings aren't always good, and neither are beginnings.  But the journey in between is well worth taking.