Get to know a literary giant in American Masters—Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Monday, May 3. All times are Eastern.
Top pick
American Masters—Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir (PBS, 9 p.m.): “I am not the subject matter of mothers and daughters or Chinese culture. I am a writer compelled by a subconscious neediness to know, which is a perpetual state of uncertainty, and a tether to the past.”
PBS’s reliable American Masters turns its gaze to acclaimed novelist Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club, The Hundred Secret Senses) in Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir, the last film from director James Redford. It premiered at Sundance back in February, but will make its way to PBS tonight for a debut timed to Asian American And Pacific Islander Heritage Month. But Viewers Like You are likely to find added relevance in Redford’s portrait of Tan as we face down a global mental health crisis. The film explores how Tan’s writing career began as a mental break from a taxing job, as the writer “opens up to Redford with remarkable frankness about traumas she’s faced in her life and how her writing has helped her heal,” per a press release.
