The Gardens of Kyoto (Paperback)
Description
I had a cousin, Randall, killed on Iwo Jima. Have I told you?
So begins Kate Walbert's beautiful and heartbreaking novel about a young woman, Ellen, coming of age in the long shadow of World War II. Forty years later she relates the events of this period, beginning with the death of her favorite cousin, Randall, with whom she shared Easter Sundays, childhood secrets, and, perhaps, the first taste of love. When he dies on Iwo Jima, she turns to the legacy he left her: his diary and a book called The Gardens of Kyoto. Each one subtly influences her perception of her place in the world, the nature of her memories.
Moving back and forth through time and place, Kate Walbert recreates a world touched by the shadows of war and a society in which women fit their desires into prescribed roles. Unfolding in lyrical, seductive prose, The Gardens of Kyoto becomes a mesmerizing exploration of the interplay of love and loss.
About the Author
Kate Walbert is the author of Where She Went, a New York Times Notable Book of 1998; The Gardens of Kyoto, winner of the Connecticut Book Award for fiction in 2002; and Our Kind, finalist for the National Book Award in 2004. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and numerous other publications. She lives in New York City and Connecticut with her family.
Praise for The Gardens of Kyoto…
Alida BeckerThe New York Times Book ReviewAn elusive first novel with understated power.
The New YorkerIn precise, delicate prose, the author renders with equal power the quiet desperation of a girl growing up in 1950s America and the ethereal.
Elizabeth WardThe Washington Post[A]...haunting, accomplished first novel.
Carol MemmottUSA TodayReaders in love with language will adore this book.
Mark RozzodeckLos Angeles TimesThere's something convincingly elegant in Walbert's prose, making this book a strange and stately object of contemplation.
Amy BloomKate Walbert's fine, delicate prose captures voices that we don't hear much anymore....The Gardens of Kyoto is a ghost story, a mystery, a love story.
Francine ProseElleThis lovely, original novel...[examines] the gauzy web of fictions we spin to protect our loved ones from the barbed truths of the past.
