Faced with writer’s block, Tan’s attempts to write her first novel are faltering. And so she embarks instead on a memoir, sparking a lively dialogue with old friends as they search their memories to examine what each one recalls and why. Was it really a dinner-table game that revealed her parents were on the brink of divorce? And was her aunt’s shower curtain really made up of raincoats? Soon, her work-in-progress starts to acquire a life of its own, gradually eclipsing the past and replacing it with something new. After Tan has put her story into a metaphorical oven, what emerges is not a faithful record of the past, but a freshly baked creation forged from memory, imagination and desire. Moving between past and present, childhood and adulthood, self and others, A PERFECT DAY TO PUT YOUR HEAD IN THE OVEN humorously transforms a personal search for truth into a surprising meditation on our human desire to make sense of our lives.
