The Dream of Water: A Memoir"POETIC . . . REMARKABLY HONEST . . . Mori describes her experiences with an admirable mixture of forthrightness and restraint." --The Wall Street Journal In an extraordinary memoir that is both a search for belonging and a search for understanding, Japanese-American author Kyoko Mori travels back to Kobe, Japan, the city of her birth, in an unspoken desire to come to terms with the memory of her mother's suicide and the family she left behind thirteen years before. Throughout her seven-week trip, Kyoko struggles with her ever-present past and the lasting guilt over her mother's death. Although she meets with beloved cousins and other relatives, she agonizes over the frustrating relationship she barely maintains with her fierce father and selfish stepmother. Searching for answers, Kyoko attempts to find a new understanding of what her father is really like, and how it has affected her own place in two distinct worlds. As her time to leave draws near, Kyoko begins to understand that her family connections may be a powerful cry of the heart, but it is the new world that has given her escape from a lonely past and the power to believe in herself. "[A] COMPELLING MEMOIR . . . LYRICAL." --Seattle Times-Post Intelligencer "ASTONISHINGLY BEAUTIFUL . . . Through the clarity filters the beauty of a large heritage that Mori is by now too American to share, but still Japanese enough to appreciate its redeeming value and to be in some measure restored by it." --Los Angeles Times Book Review "MAGICAL . . . ENLIGHTENING." --San Francisco Chronicle |
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afternoon Ashiya Aunt Akiko aunt Keiko blue bodhisattvas brother Cadine coffee dark dinner door downtown dress drink English Breakfast tea eyes father feel flowers friends front Fuku futon gaijin glass grandfather grandfather's grandmother grandparents green hair hand haori happy head Himeji hirameki Hiroshi and Michiko Hiroshima Hitomi Hokkaido husband Japan Japanese Jumpei karma Kazumi says Kenichi kimonos kitchen Kobe Jogakuin Kyoto laugh leave light live look manju marriage married minshuku Miya says morning mother mother's death mother's family never night Nishinomiya nods Osaka parents remember rice Sayo Shiro sleep smile sorry stand station stay stepmother stop sure Sylvia Sylvia's house Takako talk Tatsuo tell things thought tofu told Toshiko train train station trying turn uncle Vince waiting walk week window woman worried