A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016
A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK

'Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Piano Teacher , in the best way.' InStyle

Amaterasu Takahashi has spent her life grieving for her daughter Yuko and grandson Hideo, who were victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

Now a widow living in America, she believes that one man was responsible for her loss; a local doctor who caused an irreparable rift between mother and daughter.

When a man claiming to be Hideo arrives on her doorstep, she is forced to revisit the past; the hurt and humiliation of her early life, the intoxication of a first romance and the realisation that if she had loved her daughter in a different way, she might still be alive today.

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Library Journal Review

Four decades have passed since Amaterasu Takahashi lost her daughter and grandson in Nagasaki's atomic destruction. Now an octogenarian widow living in Philadelphia, she's shocked by the arrival of a disfigured stranger claiming to be that grandson. He brings letters from the past, as well as truths Ama kept buried most of her life. Reliving difficult memories-youthful indiscretions, desperate love affairs, estrangement from her now dead daughter-Ama resists seeing what is right before her eyes. Copleton draws on her three-year experience living in Japan to infuse her debut novel with cultural sensitivity; that said, she's not above commodifying geisha exotica à la Arthur Golden, which mars the narrative with avoidable predictability. Narrator Nancy Wu is one of the slightly less ubiquitous readers trotted out for Asian-themed titles regardless of actual ethnic heritage. She has voiced sagas from Amy Tan, Jeannie Lin, Cecily Wong, and more and here gives an effective-enough read, albeit with the occasional stumble in Japanese. VERDICT Published in 2015 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Japan, Dictionary has enough gravitas to complement most historical fiction collections. ["A well-crafted and lightly suspenseful tale of true and forbidden love and a wealth of secret revelations": LJ 12/15 review of the Penguin hc.]-Terry Hong, -Smithsonian -BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.