Publishers Weekly, September 6, 1991
The title story of this slender debut collection serves as a metaphor for the whole. Nine loosely connected tales weave the experiences of three generations of Japanese-Americans in San Francisco into a subtle, appealing tapestry. The stories explore emotional landmarks, beginning with the death of Jo Terasaki’s sister Cathy in a mountain-climbing accident and continuing to her mother’s childhood confrontation with anti-Asian prejudice. In others, a man journeys back to his childhood home in Hiroshima, where his mother was killed by the atomic bomb; and a family reflects on a father’s final illness. A rich and complex portrait emerges, infused with the palpable strength of tradition and buoyed by such recollections as Jo’s college romance with a nonconformist Japanese immigrant and her sisters’ summer-time adventures as teenagers. So sure is the author’s touch that a few deft strokes serve to define a character, a moment, the tenor of a life. Sasaki’s understated, cerebral prose speaks to the heart.
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