May 2016 Debut of the Month.
Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2016.
A bittersweet, page-turning love story which jumps back and forth in time. It tells of a Japanese couple, Ameterasu and Kenzo, now living in America and the loss of their daughter and grandson after the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. We learn of Ameterasu’s great love before she married and then of their daughter’s great love. The identity of these men is at the centre of this tale. We start it as a very disfigured man arrives on widowed Ameterasu’s doorstep claiming to be her grandson. So the past is revealed to us in dramatic bursts and Ameterau tells us of the emotional conflict between her and her daughter: so sad. At the beginning of each chapter there is a Japanese word and an explanation of its meaning and usage, not always relevant but always interesting, hence the title. Highly recommended.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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'What and how much should I admit to myself, and to others? Should I begin with this acknowledgement: my daughter Yuko might be alive today if I had loved her in a different way?' When a badly scarred man knocks on the door of Amaterasu Takahashi's retirement home and says that he is her grandson, she doesn't believe him. But if you've become adept at lying, can you tell when someone is speaking the truth? Amaterasu knows her grandson and her daughter died the day the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki; she searched for them amongst the ruins of her devastated city and has spent years burying her memories of that brutal summer. So this man is either a miracle or a cruel trick. The stranger forces Amaterasu to revisit her past; the hurt and humiliation of her early life, the intoxication of a first romance, the fierceness of a mother's love. For years she has held on to the idea that she did what she had to do to protect her family...but now nothing seems so certain. We can't rewrite history, but can we create a new future?
A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Family Drama, Historical Fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Debut Books of the Month, Book Club Recommendations, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding is available in Paperback, Hardback
A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding was written by Jackie Copleton and published by Windmill Books an imprint of Cornerstone
A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding has 294 pages
£15.29
