Etsuko, a Japanese widow living in England, reflects on a single summer in post-war Nagasaki following the suicide of her eldest daughter, Keiko. Her memories center on her friendship with Sachiko, a displaced woman struggling to care for a troubled young girl named Mariko. As Etsuko recounts their interactions against the backdrop of a city rebuilding after the atomic bombing, the narrative shifts between her current isolation and her former life. The story utilizes an unreliable memory to reveal how parental neglect and the trauma of war fracture a family’s domestic stability.
Readers drawn to psychological ambiguity and quiet, observational fiction will find value in this narrative. It appeals to those interested in how guilt reshapes personal history and how individuals use the stories of others to mask their own failures. The reader walks away with a chilling understanding of how memory functions as a defense mechanism against grief. It serves as a study of the tension between a mother’s duty and her desire for self-reinvention in a changing social landscape.
- Published
- 1982
- Language
- EN
