How to Be an American Housewife

Title:

A Novel

Author:

Durante, Emily

Dilloway, Margaret

Merlington, Laural

Subject:

Drama

Description:

How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways. Offering an entertaining glimpse into American and Japanese family lives and their potent aspirations, this is a warm and engaging novel full of unexpected insight.

Publisher:

Tantor Media, Inc.

Date:

2010-08-05

Digital Format:

HOOPLA AUDIO BOOK

Summary

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A Japanese war bride and her American daughter lay bare family secrets and heal old wounds in Dilloway's poignant debut.At the end of the war, 18-year-old Shoko had to go to work so her younger brother Taro could finish school, even though she was the better student. As a girl, her mission was to find a husband, and her father hoped she would marry one of the American occupiers, though her brother hated them. But Shoko fell in love with Ronin, a member of the "untouchable" caste still despised in modern Japan, and only married kindly American Charlie after Ronin was killed. We learn all this from the elderly Shoko, settled in San Diego since Charlie retired from the Navy and now facing surgery for a heart condition, probably a legacy of radiation from the bomb blast at Nagasaki, 50 miles from her childhood home. Though Taro has refused to communicate with his sister since she married an American, Shoko has unfinished business in her homeland, and when her doctor forbids her to make the trip, she persuades daughter Sue to go in her stead. Sue, a divorce with a preteen daughter and a paper-pushing job that bores her, has always felt that she disappointed her motherand in fact, Shoko's narration of Part One reveals a cranky, difficult woman, unable to show love except by criticizing and still carrying around a load of resentments from her childhood. Part Two, Sue's account of her visit to Japan, is considerably softer-edged; she meets two welcoming cousins and manages to crack Taro's grumpy faade, collecting the white funeral kimono Shoko has requested of him and eliciting fond memories of his sister as a baseball-playing tomboy in prewar Japan. The transition is a little abrupt, and the closing sections are more reassuring than Shoko's narration led us to expect. Readers looking for a strong story that turns out well for sympathetically rendered characters will not complain.Warm-hearted and well-written, if a trifle pat.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.