The Book of Loss

Told in the style of the classical Japanese women's diaries from the Heian era (794–1185 C.E.) Jedamus's first book is a melodramatic court romance. The banishment of Kanesuke no Tachibana for his crime of seducing the emperor's daughter sets off a bitter feud between the brooding narrator—who is 29, unnamed and a provincial governor's daughter—and her friend-turned-rival Izumi no Jiju. They both love Kanesuke, and they are both ladies-in-waiting to Empress Akiko (real-life mistress to Tale of Genji author Murasaki Shikibu), and they engage in a battle to ruin each other's reputations through spying and gossip. When a ripe intrigue of the narrator's backfires with the empress, and, separately, the emperor's son and heir dies of smallpox, the narrator's moral corruption is blamed, forcing her to commit an act of sacrifice that is also her redemption. Jedamus, whose background is in art history, skillfully evokes the elegant aesthetic and elaborate pageantry of the Heian period, particularly in the book's fascinating glossary. But her writing is as florid as her plot is overwrought. (June)