Author: Margaret Dilloway
First Published: July 2010
Publisher: Berkley
352 pages (paperback)
This is the story of a Japanese woman who married an American naval officer after World War II, and traveled to the United States with her new husband in hopes of a better life. Some elements of the story are based on the author’s mother’s own life, but for the most part, this is largely a fictional piece of work. I remember reading a positive review of it a long time ago, I can’t remember where though, which is why I picked it up during a bookstore sale. It’s a pretty quick read, and I found I enjoyed it, especially since I like cultural/history kind of novels.
Shoko is the main character of this novel, a Japanese woman, who, in the present timeline of the novel, is middle aged, married to her Caucasian husband Charlie and mother of two adult children, Mike and Sue. She is also grandmother to Sue’s daughter, Helena. Shoko has been experiencing cardiac problems for a while now, which she believes stems from the radiation of the atomic bombs that hit Japan in World War II. She elects to have surgery. However, the surgery carries with it certain risks and Shoko is aware of the very real possibility she may die, even with the surgery.
Facing the possibility of death, Shoko regrets not visiting Japan even once since she left her home country. She reminisces about her childhood, her first love, and how she met her husband Charlie during World War II. Most of all, she thinks about her family. She was always close to her brother, but after Shoko’s marriage to an American, her brother shunned Shoko and refused to speak to her. Shoko wishes for nothing more than to go to Japan and see her brother once more, but due to her health she cannot. So, she begs her daughter to go in her place, find her brother and talk to him.
Sue, a single mom, grew up somewhat detached from Japanese culture, as her mother tried so hard to be American. She reminisces about her own childhood, feeling different from her classmates and remembers her mother’s own isolation. A single mother, Sue is hesitant to go to Japan so suddenly to talk to relatives she has never met before, but reluctantly agrees, hoping the trip may help her find a missing part of her.
This is a cultural story whose center, I believe, is the mother and daughter relationship between Shoko and Sue. Shoko leaves Japan behind and tries to be American as possible. Sue grew up American but when she goes to Japan for the first time, it feels like she has returned home. Both reflect on one another and the struggles each one must have had, each thinking the other will never understand the hardships she had to go through. The book is kind of predictable in that both of their re-connections with Japanese culture eventually leads to them having a stronger mother-daughter bond. It’s not particularly a novel idea, but it’s sweet.
I wish the story expanded more on the character of Charlie, Shoko’s husband. Shoko’s marriage to Charlie did not get very much of the spotlight, even though her marriage to him is the entire reason she is in America in the first place. The book is written in first person from Shoko (and Sue’s) perspectives, so I never got inside Charlie’s head, which made me a little disappointed as I would have loved to have his perspective on marrying a Japanese wife. After all, I have Shoko’s perspective on marrying an American man. I really think more on Shoko and Charlie would have been really interesting and enhanced the book, but as I said earlier, this book did seem to be much more about Shoko and her daughter than Shoko and her husband. The only other thing that kind of bugged me was how convenient that when Sue visited her “long lost” relatives in Japan, they all knew English. Well, that’s handy isn’t it?!
Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. It was really easy to read, the pages seemed to fly by and I was done before I knew it!
My Rating: 4/5
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