Story Description:
Winner
of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
National
Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
A
New York Time Notable Book
A
gorgeous novel by the celebrated author of When
the Emperor Was Divine that tells the story of young women brought from
Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago. In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the
extraordinary lives of these women, from their arduous journeys by boat, to
their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives;
from their experiences raising children who would later reject their culture
and language, to the deracinating arrival of war. Once again, Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding
novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in
uncertain times.
My Review:
A group of young women from Japan are on a boat headed
for San Francisco to meet their new husbands.
They are picture brides, arranged marriages by a matchmaker Little did they know that the photo’s they
had been sent in Japan were 20 years old and the beautifully written letters
they received from their new “American husbands” weren’t from them at all. They were from people hired to write the
letters that were full of promises but all lies. The men were not teachers, bankers and other
career men but instead simple roaming farm hands.
The first night they were met at the boat, their new
husbands walked them gently and carefully until under the cover of darkness in
hotel rooms were the sexual contact was rough, painful, and indecent. Their hopes and dreams for a better life in
America were soon dashed.
The women were living in labour camps in the hot dusty
hills of Sacramento, the Imperial, and the San Joaquin and worked side-by-side
with their new husbands. The women
worked the land, picked grapes, pulled weeds, picked strawberries, dug up
potatoes, and sorted green beans. When
winter came they bundled up their clothing and waited for the next wagon and
traveled on.
If their husbands had told them the truth in their
letters that they were not silk traders and teachers that did not live in many
roomed houses but tents and in barns and outdoors in fields, they never would
have come.
They eventually knuckled down and did the best they
could, eventually garnering jobs that were a bit better working in people’s
homes. Soon the war would break out and
things were about to drastically change.
An excellent novel!!
No comments:
Post a Comment