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The Woman in the White Kimono

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Oceans and decades apart, two women are inextricably bound by the secrets between them.
Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura's prearranged marriage to the son of her father's business associate would secure her family's status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man—an American sailor, a gaijin—and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it's learned Naoko carries the sailor's child, she's cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.
America, present day. Tori Kovac, caring for her dying father, finds a letter containing a shocking revelation—one that calls into question everything she understood about him, her family and herself. Setting out to learn the truth behind the letter, Tori's journey leads her halfway around the world to a remote seaside village in Japan, where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption.
In breathtaking prose and inspired by true stories from a devastating and little-known era in Japanese and American history, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 20, 2019
      Johns’s rich and memorable debut alternates from the present to the past as a daughter uncovers shocking secrets about her father. In 1957, Tori Kovac’s father was in the U.S. Navy and stationed in Japan where he met and fell in love with beautiful Naoko. Her family was opposed to their marriage, having already picked a husband for Naoko. In the present day, Tori, a journalist, cares for her widower father after his cancer diagnosis, taking him to doctor’s appointments at a cancer center in Ohio. Shortly before he dies, Tori’s father gives her a letter that he believes will help her understand the secrets of his life when he was a young man in the Navy. The letter is addressed to a Japanese woman who is the mother of his daughter. After reading the letter, Tori becomes determined to find out if she has a half-sister in Japan. Tori travels to Japan to uncover secrets from her father’s past, and she questions why her father would have left the woman and child behind. Johns does a good job depicting the 1950s Japan setting, but the highlight is the strong characterization of Tori. This novel about unearthing the past packs an emotional punch.

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  • English

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