ALL SORROWS CAN BE BORNE

A financially struggling Japanese couple makes a painful decision to send their son to the United States to be raised by relatives in Stephens’ novel.

Noriko Ito was only 7 when the U.S. military dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Her parents owned a sushi shop in the city,but the brutal end to the war threw their business and Noriko’s childhood into disarray. As a hibakusha, or survivor, she lives in fear of eventually contracting a radiation-related illness. As a young adult, she hopes to enter a drama academy and become an actor, so she moves to Osaka, where she works in her half sister’s tearoom. With her hair cut in a short, modern style, she’s ready to take on the world—but then she’s rejected by the school. The tearoom’s general manager, Ichiro, sees that she’s depressed and begins to court her; he’s a gentle, kind man who put aside some dreams of his own to earn a living. Eventually, the two marry and have a son, but then Ichiro is diagnosed with tuberculosis. The couple relies on help from family to get by, and Ichiro convinces Noriko they should send their son to live with his sister, who married an American and lives in Montana—a move that only causes more pain for Noriko. Stephens’ sprawling novel is loaded with details about Japanese culture, postwar history, and the Tenrikyo religion in particular. It also features some wonderful lines that give readers keen insight into Noriko’s psyche: “Japanese people believe that children up to the age of five can communicate with angels, but can they also communicate with the dead?” she wonders to herself, not long before her son is to depart. The pace of the storytelling is quite leisurely, though, as it methodically moves along a relatively flat story arc. Still, the characters’ perseverance through continual struggle makes for a compelling story of survival of life’s many trials and of one person’s drive to stay true to oneself.

A compassionate, informed novel about loss in postwar Japan hampered somewhat by slow pacing.