This book takes us to the early 1900s when male Japanese immigrant field workers were requesting so called mail order brides, where both parties were known to each other only via letters and pictures exchanged through the mail. In many instances the groom’s pictures were not even his real image, as they wanted to cover up their poverty and portray themselves as wealthy and handsome. Upon the brides’ arrival they found themselves living in shacks and working long, backbreaking hours to pick vegetables or fruits under the hot California sun.
This fiction book is a collection of memories of all these young wives: their experiences, stories, disappointments and adventures in their newly found homeland. The author was inspired by stores of her Japanese-American relatives, who once mail order brides. The young wives tried to nurture the customs and religion of their homeland while embracing the new ways of life in their newly adopted country. Decades later, after these women had raised new generations of American citizens, the Pearl Harbor tragedy caused them to end up in internment camps.
The book is written in an unusual prose style, in places utilizing simple statements, rather than sentences, which reminds the reader of the art of calligraphy. It may be for this unusual writing style that this book was nominated for the National Book Award in 2011.
This book could be a read-alike to Honolulu by Alan Brennert, which I reviewed in the past. Otsuka’s previous book is called When the Emperor was Divine.