AFTER THE BANQUET

by Yuko Mishima ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 1962

An exquisitely paced high comedy at once characterized by humor and restraint, written in Yuko Mishima's pellucid prose, features a magnificently ebullient heroine as she embarks upon one more adventure in love. Kazu Fukuzawa is the highly successful owner of the Setsugoan, a restaurant patronized by Conservative Party bigwigs and by other distinguished gentlemen such as the ex-cabinet minister Noguchi who comes to a banquet and strikes her fancy. The enamored Kazu is formidable, and the courtship proceeds with seemly dignity until at last she has attained the twin peaks of perfection -- a marriage where affection lies and where she can look forward to burial with a distinguished family. Kazu throws all her physical and financial resources into the campaign to elect her husband governor on the Radical Party ticket, only to have her own past played against him. Having lost the election, Noguchi prepares for a quiet retirement befitting an intellectual -- and Kazu, fresh from political drama, realizes that she has entombed herself too soon with her dried stick of a husband. Her final political play (she gets the triumphant Conservatives to pay up her mortgage on the Setsugoan) frees her from him and returns her to the delights of her restaurant restored and her garden revived. A classic portrait of vigorous September and withered December in collision.

Pub Date: Feb. 11, 1962

ISBN: 0375705155

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1962

Categories: FICTION