Author Amy Tan poses at an unknown location in Aug. 1993.

I think Amy Tan might take the idea of survival more literally than most of us. As a teenager, she watched her father and brother die of brain tumors a few months apart; a close friend was murdered just hours after she left his apartment; she has almost drowned, she's been stalked and received death threats. The stories of her grandmother, who committed suicide rather than live as a rich man's concubine, and her mother, who was jailed after leaving her abusive husband, are woven into her novels, which include The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Bonesetter's Daughter. And in her book The Opposite of Fate, she recounts her battle with Lyme disease. Let's find out what she would consider the essential components of her survival kit.

Her list:

1. Bubba and Lilli (her Yorkshire terriers)
2. Antibiotics
3. Generators
4. Bose headphones
5. CD - Ralph Vaughn Williams, "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis"
6. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Vintage edition with annotations by Albert Appel
7. Steinway grand piano
8. Excellent recliner


WNYC archives id: 42815