In 2002 a little green book was published and just about all of the staff went crazy for it. If you were shopping with us at that time I’m sure that you will remember it because no one left the store without it in their bag. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka tells the story of one Japanese American family who are forced to leave Berkley, CA and are placed in a Utah internment camp for the duration of the war.
Well, guess what? Julie Otsuka has a new little book, The Buddha in the Attic. I started reading it over the weekend and I am just as in love with this one as the other. One could almost call this a prequel because of the timing and subject matter. Otsuka tells us the story of a group of ‘picture brides,’ who were brought to the United States to begin a new life with new husbands they have never met, and to escape their lives in Japan.
We follow them as a whole group for the next 20 years, from their journey, their arrival in San Francisco, their first night with their husbands, their new lives which consist of back breaking work in the fields and scrubbing floors for white women, to their struggles learning a new language and culture, their child birth experiences and motherhood, to the beginning of WWII and imminent internment.
We cooked for them. We cleaned for them. We helped them chop wood. But it was not we who were cooking and cleaning and chopping, it was somebody else. And often our husbands did not even notice we’d disappeared.
Reading this is like listening to a ‘chorus’ of women telling their stories as one. I really thought that I would be bothered reading a book that really doesn’t have a plot or even a narrative but I soon realized how strong and powerful this book is.
I will be readily recommending The Buddha in the Attic to all my customers especially book clubs because I believe that so many people will be able to empathize with these women’s plight and how they deal with their situations.
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