Reviews for A brighter tomorrow

The average rating for A brighter tomorrow based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-08 00:00:00 Peter Rasmussen (I posted this review a few days ago but somehow the review did not 'appear,' so here it is) Here is a novel about five generations of Japanese American women in San Francisco. They still occupy the house lived in by the first immigrant. At the time of the story four generations are still alive, so there is a daughter, the main character, her mother, grandmother and great grandmother (aka Great-grandpainintheass." I'll say this. Nothing is what you (I, anyway) expect. If you envision a saga of five generations struggling to achieve the American dream with hard-working stay-at home, religious mothers - this is not it. In these stories it's the women who stray, in fact, or in their minds, because they all seem to have picked the wrong man. The men are faithful, doting even, but the women are unsatisfied. It began with the very first generation where the wife went back to Japan to visit her family and never returned. Her daughter (the great-grandmother in the book) grew up hanging out at the docks watching ships unload because her father told her "she'll be back; she'll be back." She never came back. Fast-forward. The fifth-generation daughter is thoroughly Americanized. She has a caring mother, all this multi-generational family surrounding her (although a workaholic dad), and yet seems totally lost, astray and rudderless. She carries on with her boyfriend in the backyard knowing that her grandmother can't see and that even though her great-grandmother can see, she won't be believed. She lets her sister's boyfriend screw her in the pool. She wants to go to Japan (she doesn't know why) and does so, for a year. While she is there she hardly interacts with anyone, but has a baby and gives it up for adoption. She never tells anyone, including her mother or the baby's father back in the states. Men kill themselves, right? Not in this story. After her grandmother tried to kill herself, her mother sees her daughter depressed and says "It's not your fault you know." And the girl thinks "It hasn't occurred to me that it is, but the instant she says those words I know I am to blame." Her mother tells her that her suicide attempt "shows disrespect for her family." The girl's father is a sad type too. He was a Christian minister and a workaholic all the time his two daughters were young. When his daughters are teenagers, he leaves the church and wants to start getting involved in the family. Of course, it's way too late. The LAST thing that teenaged girls want to do is hang out with Dad at a family barbeque. She thinks of her father "He does not deserve to know about me. He wants information served to him the way my mother serves him dinner." In the end she decides he "isn't part of my memory." "I had grown accustomed to life without a father and at 15 his sudden interest in me felt unnatural, unholy even…" This book has some great writing and quite lyrical writing. It is flawed in other ways and I should point out it has a very low rating on GR. I found it very confusing at times trying to figure out which woman a chapter focused on since the story jumps around in time as the women reflect back on their past, talking about their mothers and grandmothers -- too many grandmothers! But here are some passages I liked that I thought illustrate great writing: "After 28 years of marriage I can actually see words forming in his lungs." "…she has managed to express her hatred for me through acts of kindness." "…her voice sticks to my ear like the paste of death." When a grandmother with 7 daughters is dying, all of them gathered about her, one is overly solicitous to her every need. The eldest tells her ""Mama will not die as long as you keep calling her back." A 3.5 rounded up to 4 for the good writing. Photo of Japanese immigrant women at dock from caamedia.org Photo of the author, a creative writing professor at the U of New Mexico, from english.unm.edu

Review # 2 was written on 2008-01-17 00:00:00 Christophe Ravier There is a house in San Francisco that is home to four generations of mothers and daughters. Its story begins with Reiko, who spends much of her youth watching the ships enter San Francisco Bay, hoping one will bring her mother, whom she has never known, from Japan. The generations of mothers and daughters that follow carry love and hate, understanding and misunderstanding, closeness and distance. These conflicts could occur in most any family. Even though the pace is slow, our interest follows willingly the inner turbulence each woman feels. Each indulges in deep introspection--perhaps too much--and we may or may not identify with her anxieties. Near the story's end, the youngest daughter has "escaped" to Japan, eventually to return. I found the ending a downer because I didn't recognize any resolution to the anxieties and introspections. It could be that I missed something because I would not have made the same choices these women made in their quest for fulfillment. That said, those who can identify with the book's heroines can savor the richness of a well-told story.