Plum Wine
Angela Davis-Gardner, . . Univ. of Wisconsin/Terrace, $26.95 (316pp) ISBN 978-0-299-21160-8
As this enthralling novel opens, Barbara Jefferson, teaching English in Japan in 1966, receives a bequest from her Japanese fellow teacher and mentor, Michiko Nakamoto, a Hiroshima survivor who has just died of cancer. Barbara's superiors arrive at her apartment bearing Michi-San's gorgeous tansu chest, filled with bottles of homemade plum wine dated by year. After a short, perfectly rendered struggle with the elder Japanese teachers over the possession of the wine, Barbara discovers that the rice paper wrappings of each bottle contain a portion of the story of Michiko's life. Barbara's path through the texts, which she cannot translate herself, forms the rest of the novel. As Barbara delves into Michi-San's life and loves, an odd triangle forms between Barbara, Michiko and Michiko's childhood friend Seiji, a man who is between the two women in age, and who translates some texts. Author of
Reviewed on: 03/27/2006
Genre: Fiction
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-4498-9952-3
Open Ebook - 333 pages - 978-0-299-21163-9
Paperback - 352 pages - 978-0-385-34083-0