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Once Removed

Name: Once Removed
Author: Mako Yoshikawa
ISBN: 9780553380989

by Mako Yoshikawa

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Overview

The Washington Post praised Mako Yoshikawa’s extraordinary first novel, One Hundred and One Ways, as “strikingly assured.” The Orlando Sentinel called it “an impressive accomplishment.” In Once Removed, Yoshikawa continues in the tradition of Alice Walker and Amy Tan with a powerful story of two women from different cultures who form a deep friendship that, though severely tested, can never be broken.

It has been many long years since Claudia last saw her Japanese-American stepsister. Once upon a time, Claudia’s Jewish father fell in love with Rei’s Japanese mother and abandoned his family to be with her. Though Claudia resented this new family her father so readily embraced, from the moment she and Rei met, the two girls formed a bond not even their parents understood. Their long-standing joke is that they are mirror reflections of each other--though in truth they are striking opposites. Claudia is blond and large-boned; Rei is dark-haired and thin, with distinct Asian features.

Now in their early thirties, Claudia and Rei have found a way back into each other’s troubled life. As impulsively affectionate as ever, Rei has come to Boston to recuperate from a potentially life-threatening illness, while the typically cautious Claudia has found herself replicating the behavior of her step-mother by falling in love with a married man. As they come together, the two women realize they must strike a balance between the friendship they long to recover and the secrets they have learned to keep. And they discover that despite the distance that has grown between them, their bond is as strong as ever--and could help them repair the other wounded relationships in their lives.

Lyrical, evocative, and richly imagined, Once Removed is an exceptional tale of two families, two cultures, and the connection between two women that survives the betrayals of those around them. Taking us from the exotic Japan of the 1940s and ’50s, to the verdant English countryside, to the urban streets of Boston, Mako Yoshikawa is a gifted storyteller who has firmly established her place in contemporary fiction.

From the Hardcover edition.

Synopsis

The Washington Post praised Mako Yoshikawa's extraordinary first novel, One Hundred and One Ways, as strikingly assured. The Orlando Sentinel called it an impressive accomplishment.

The Washington Post

Eloquent and evocative, Once Removed explores the nature of love and marriage, intimacy and betrayal. At the same time, it is always mindful of the ways chance and history shape character and influence choices. — Linda Barrett Osborne

About the Author, Mako Yoshikawa

Mako Yoshikawa has studied at Columbia University and at Oxford. She has been a Vera M. Schuyler Fellow of Creative Writing at the Bunting Institute at Harvard University and is a doctoral candidate in English literature at the University of Michigan. She is also the author of the novel One Hundred and One Ways. Yoshikawa lives in Boston.

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Editorials

The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Painful breakups and long separations define this gentle, thoughtful novel by Yoshikawa (One Hundred and One Ways), in which two stepsisters rekindle a long-interrupted friendship. Claudia and Rei first meet when they are nine, after Claudia's father, a New Jersey geologist, abandons Claudia's mother for Rei's mother, a Japanese artist who has recently immigrated to the U.S. The two girls become fast friends-they insist that they even look alike, though Claudia is blond and Catholic-Jewish, and Rei is Japanese-but when they are 17, their parents divorce, and they are separated. As the novel begins, they meet again for the first time in 17 years. Rei, battling skin cancer, looks to Claudia for the support she always provided as a child. Claudia, in turn, barrages Rei with countless questions about the demise of their parents' marriage and Rei's disappearance, and consults her about her own affair with a married man, Vikrum. As the novel progresses, Rei's mother, long viewed by Claudia as the temptress who destroyed her family, emerges as a conflicted woman bound by pride and scarred by an incident in Japan during World War II. As her story is revealed, Claudia begins to think differently about her past, but also about her tormented relationship with Vikrum. Yoshikawa's writing has a tendency to swim into soft focus, but the emotional struggles she recounts are keenly described and their resolutions unexpected. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Yoshikawa's follow-up to her first novel, One Hundred and One Ways, is a contemporary multicultural story of two stepsisters, one Japanese American and the other Jewish American, initially brought together through marriage and now reunited after a 17-year separation. The narration alternates between Rei(ko) and Claudia, whose father, Henry, left her and her mother, Rosie, to marry Rei's mother, Hana. Each sister describes her experiences growing up and her relationships with the other characters in the novel. Added to the mix are Rei's bout with skin cancer and Claudia's own guilt-ridden story of taking after her father in maintaining an affair with Vikram, a married man of Indian descent with an alcoholic wife and two young children. Yoshikawa's writing is filled with long, intricate sentences and thoughts. Asides set off in parentheses and liberally sprinkled throughout the text are distracting, often interrupting the flow of the narrative. As a result, the novel begins slowly, but it manages to pick up speed and as a whole covers the topic of ethnically blended families and divorce with a fresh and honest sense of realism. Libraries owning her previous novel and those with ample fiction budgets may find this a worthwhile purchase.-Shirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A reserved second outing by Yoshikawa (One Hundred and One Ways, 1999), filled with regret and recriminations, about two stepsisters reunited. After a 17-year-long separation and silence, Claudia is both overjoyed and troubled when stepsister Rei contacts her. Rei is moving to Boston, so the two will be together again, but Claudia wants to know why Rei disappeared in the first place. When Claudia was nine, her kind but plodding father Henry shocked everyone by quickly divorcing Claudia’s mother to marry Hana, a Japanese widow he met at the hardware store. Claudia (who spent weekends with her father’s new family) and Rei became sisters in the truest sense of the word, thinking of each other as twins, wondering how anyone could tell them apart. Though she hated Hana for dissolving her family (and still does), Claudia was spellbound by the stories Rei told, fairy tales involving Hana and the crown prince of Japan, about Hana the dedicated young artist, about Hana and America. Now that Rei is back, cagey and unwilling to talk about the skin cancer that nearly killed her, Claudia is revisited by images of Hana. Always fascinated by the woman who stole her father, Claudia feels she is now truly her stepmother’s child since she herself is having an affair with a married man. Claudia and Vikram have been devoted to each other for the past two years, but his traditional family won’t allow for divorce, especially with his two children so young. The irony is not lost on Claudia, but her intractable dislike for Hana remains. Though a bit splintered in its focus, the final revelations--why Hana abandoned Henry after eight years of blissful marriage, why Hana became obsessed with painting mushrooms,why Hana eventually takes all responsibility for Rei’s cancer--serve less as compulsory climax than as simple extensions of the stories Rei has been telling Claudia all their lives about the mysterious and unknowable Hana. A quiet, meditative tale about devotion in its many forms. Agent: Sandy Dijkstra