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UNMAPPED TERRITORIES

Name: UNMAPPED TERRITORIES
Author: Yukiko Tanaka
ISBN: 1-879679-00-0

NEW WOMEN'S FICTION FROM JAPAN

edited by Yukiko Tanaka & translated by Yukiko Tanaka ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1991

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Stories by currently noteworthy Japanese women writers, published in the 1980's, and now available for the first time in translation. Written during a period of transition, these pieces reflect women's responses to a time of both positive and negative changes. Women are accepted in the workforce, their sexuality is acknowledged, yet these benefits have a price: families are dislocated, children suffer, and important traditions are lost. In Mizuko Masuda's ``Sinking Ground,'' a 30-ish administrator has tried to impose a rigid order on her life but finds that ``a bag of memories is not as sturdy as one might think.'' Another independent woman, an artist, finds new creative vitality (in Eimi Yamada's ``When A Man Loves A Woman'') when she has an affair with a beautiful younger man. Two stories—``The Rain at Rokudo Crossroad,'' by Kazuko Saeguso, and ``Candle Fish,'' by Minako Ohba—despite their references to old legends, describe contemporary married women trying to attain a measure of independence. These varying concerns all come together in the especially accomplished ``A Family Party'' by Hikari Agata. A daughter-in-law organizing a family get-together in a new hotel built on the site of their old home recalls how her in-laws sold their land and moved to a suburb, where her father-in-law seemed lost: ``We thought that as long as he could continue his work he would be happy. We were wrong.'' Then when he is killed in an accident, ``We talked about his death as a consequence of his dementia, we knew he had been feeling guilty for selling the land that he had inherited from his ancestors....Even so, what could we have done?'' The old and the new converge, and the result is understandably less-than satisfactory. A notable collection—to be read not only for its insights into the lives of contemporary Japanese women but for the very good writing here.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1991

ISBN: 1-879679-00-0

Page Count: 168

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
EMBRACING FAMILY
by Nobuo Kojima & translated by Yukiko Tanaka

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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'SALEM'S LOT

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 1975

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A super-exorcism that leaves the taste of somebody else's blood in your mouth and what a bad taste it is. King presents us with the riddle of a small Maine town that has been deserted overnight. Where did all the down-Easters go? Matter of fact, they're still there but they only get up at sundown. . . for a warm drink. . . .Ben Mears, a novelist, returns to Salem's Lot (pop. 1319), the hometown he hasn't seen since he was four years old, where he falls for a young painter who admires his books (what happens to her shouldn't happen to a Martian). Odd things are manifested. Someone rents the ghastly old Marsten mansion, closed since a horrible double murder-suicide in 1939; a dog is found impaled on a spiked fence; a healthy boy dies of anemia in one week and his brother vanishes. Ben displays tremendous calm considering that you're left to face a corpse that sits up after an autopsy and sinks its fangs into the coroner's neck. . . . Vampirism, necrophilia, et dreadful alia rather overplayed by the author of Carrie (1974).