A Man & His Cat, book 5, by Umi Sakurai. Square Enix Co Ltd.

In this volume, Fukumaru and Mr. Kanda face the situation that every pet owner fears: Fukumaru gets out the door as Mr. Kanda enters, and doesn’t come back. The book breaks into multiple threads at this point. We follow Mr. Kanda and his friends as they search for days for Fukumaru, while another thread is Fukumaru himself, wandering the city, lost and fearful. There are also a couple of other side threads; Moja, who lived in the cage next to Fukumaru at the pet store is on the streets, too, and Moriyama deals with problems with his band. Interspersed with the heavy stories are one page vignettes of life with cats, including one where Fukumaru starts heaving and Kanda tries (fruitlessly) to get a newspaper in front of the cat before he vomits. We’ve all been there! Five stars, despite a few glitches with the art.

The Woman in the White Kimono, by Ana Johns. Park Row Books, 2019

Tori Kovac, in present day America, watches her father die right after he gives her a letter that was written by him to someone in Japan, and it was returned in the mail. Who is it to, and what does it mean?



Seventeen year old Naoko Nakamura, in 1950s Japan, is being pressured into an arranged marriage to improve her family’s financial stability. But she is in love with someone else… an American sailor, Jimmy, a gaijin still hated in this decade after the war. And, furthermore, she’s carrying his child. This does not go over well with her family. With only her frail mother for an ally, she does not realize how far her father and grandmother will go to prevent losing face.



In alternating chapters, Naoko and Tori narrate their stories. Naoko relates her trials of the next year of her life, which include people she thought she could trust betraying her. After a quick wedding that isn’t binding, Jimmy/Hajime is taken away from her by naval maneuvers, and without him to protect her, a tragedy puts her back into her family’s hands. Tori’s story is how she unravels the mystery of Naoki and her father.



It’s not a spoiler to say this doesn’t end happily for Naoko and Jimmy; it’s right there in the beginning. But the road that Naoko has to travel is not easy, and her story is quite suspenseful. I was really cheering for her! Tori I didn’t care so much for- the author didn’t put as much into her, I felt. Four stars for a good tale and a plucky protagonist.

Fujisan, by Randy Taguchi. Amazon Crossing, 2012

Fujisan, by Randy Taguchi. Amazon Crossing, 2012

While little known in America- ‘Fujisan’ is only her second book released in English- Randy Taguchi has written 14 novels and many short stories and essays and is immensely popular in Japan. The four stories in ‘Fujjisan’ are all set on or near Mt. Fuji. That, and the fact that all four protagonists are struggling psychologically, is what connects these stories together. In ‘Blue Summit’, a former cult member working in a convenience store strives to deal with life now that he is allowed free will. ‘Sea of Trees’ is a coming of age story, as three boys in their early teens meet danger and death for the first time. ‘Jamila’ is the name of a hoarder, the psychological opposite of the narrator, who throws away his past like dirty hankies. In ‘Child of Light’, a nurse faces life and death and the human spirit- far from the first time for her- as she wonders about her future.

The protagonists are all struggling to reconcile their images of themselves. Faced with change on a deep level, they are all knocked off balance and into new understanding of themselves by other people. The stories are quiet and reflective like a Japanese garden but deeply moving.