After telling Barbara a sad story, Seiji introduces her to the concept of awaré—“graceful sorrow.” It’s an apt description...
A story of love and secrets in postwar Japan.
It’s 1966, and an American student named Barbara Jefferson is teaching English classes at a Japanese college. When the story begins, Nakamoto Michiko—Barbara’s closest friend in Japan, and her foster-mother—has died, leaving the young woman a strange inheritance: a case of plum wine. Barbara soon discovers that the papers in which the bottles are sealed is covered in calligraphy, and, once they’re translated, learns the story of Michi’s life. She also falls in love with Okada Seiji, the man she turns to for help with the translation. Their relationship is overshadowed by the fact that Seiji is hibakusha: He survived the attack on Hiroshima, and the resulting guilt and ignominy still poison his spirit. Barbara learns that Michi was a survivor, too—a truth the older woman concealed when she was alive. Everyone in this book has a secret, a private hurt or a hidden shame, but Davis-Gardner is not interested in melodrama. Even the most disturbing revelations are dispassionately delivered; they create a deep and quiet resonance, rather than cheap sensation. For example, Barbara is shocked to learn that hibakusha are ostracized—that they’re punished for being the innocent victims of an atrocity. Davis-Gardner does not turn this fact of postwar life into an indictment of Japanese mores. Instead, she situates the survivors’ silence within the more general code of honor and restraint that defines so much of Japanese culture. This reticence—the influence of which is also felt in the author’s unadorned prose style—provides a powerful, affecting counterpoint to the overwhelming reality of Hiroshima. It also offers a salutary alternative to the American literary tradition of telling all until it’s fit for the daytime talk-show circuit.
After telling Barbara a sad story, Seiji introduces her to the concept of awaré—“graceful sorrow.” It’s an apt description for the feeling that suffuses this elegant, moving novel.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-299-21160-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Terrace Books/Univ. of Wisconsin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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