Pearl, a young Chinese-American woman, is seriously ill and tries her best to hide this fact from her mother, Winnie. But Winnie herself keeps frightening secrets of her past from her daughter. However, the moment comes when all the secrets must be revealed - Helen, Winnie's daughter-in-law, insists on this, who wants to be freed from the burden of lies before her death. And we, following Winnie, née Jiang Weili, return to Shanghai in the 1920s to go with her through the nightmare of marriage with a sadistic husband, the horrors of World War II and the death of her children, but not to lose hope and faith in herself. The second novel by the famous American writer Amy Tan is based on real events from the history of her family.