Nothing is going quite the way 32-year-old Kubota expected. He has been seconded to his company’s distributor, where he must work a tough job in sales. His wife Sayuri has declared him a “mama’s boy,” even though she is the one who is way closer to her mother than a grownup should be, going out to dinner with her two or three times a week and still calling her “mama,” while he barely sees his and rarely feels any need to talk to her. But something in Sayuri’s comment gnaws at him, and he begins to turn over in his mind images of his mother from his childhood on, trying to piece together her many contradictions. He begins to feel he never knew his mother at all. And if that’s true, what kind of family can he hope to create?
Mitsuyo Kakuta is the author of Woman on the Other Shore and The Eighth Day and the recipient of 14 literary prizes in Japan. She lives in Tokyo.
Cover design by Andrew Lee.
Mitsuyo Kakuta is the author of Woman on the Other Shore and The Eighth Day and the recipient of 14 literary prizes in Japan. She lives in Tokyo.
Cover design by Andrew Lee.
