DCL Book Chat

In a mere 144 pages Julie Otsuka manages to cover over one hundred years in the lives of Japanese picture brides and their families. Picture brides were the young women that came to America as mail-order brides, to be wed sight-unseen to Japanese men already established in their new country. Award-winning author Otsuka accomplishes this in an unusual style, using repetitive lists of events in an all-encompassing third person plural voice. Instead of focusing on the life story of a single character we learn of the cumulative events of many nameless characters: One of us . . . Some of us . . . None of us . . . It’s a bold and controversial style that would make for great discussion in a book group, as some will love the retrained power and dynamic of this style and others will feel the lack of a centralized characterization. There’s a haunting beauty to the story presented in this step-back style, and a distinctive way to tell a powerful story.

Laura

Red Cross nurse Nina Borg thinks she’s just doing a friend a simple favor when she agrees to pick up a suitcase from the train station. Little does she know this act will lead days on the run and a fight for her life, as well as the life of, yes, you guessed it, a vulnerable three-year-old she finds drugged inside the suitcase. Of course it’s not a simple choice to turn the boy over to the authorities. Instead, we learn how this bizarre event came to pass and the whys and wherefores of who wants what from whom. It’s a great story of good intensions gone horrible wrong. This Danish mystery keeps the pace whizzing along at the same time that it takes the time to give some real depth to its characters. This is the first book in a planned series.

Laura J.