Otsuka and Her Other Works 1

Maureen Howard: One of the things I find amazing about this book is that as sorrowful as we might want to say the story is in many places, the writer never gets into actually joining with that sorrow, the narrative voice. She keeps an author’s distance so that we can join with her. Reading this book is collaborative. We are asked to join and see them go back to the house, to see the mother try and find the things that have been destroyed or that she once had in this perfectly kept house to see what has been done to it. And that is an experience for the particular people in this book, but also after that war, after many wars going back is hard. How do you reenter a life? Can you reenter a life?