With a deeply-imbedded indebtedness to their father Morimasa Morimoto, a
self-made man in post-war Japan, two sisters struggle to uphold a family
legacy. Sakiko moves to the fantastically free United States. Fragile
and unsure in 1960s San Francisco, she clings to her brazen artist
husband for stability. Hiroko, headstrong and irreverent, uses her
father's money to move to New York, promising to become a famous artist.
Intolerant of weakness in others, she crumbles in the face of her own
shortcomings.
From catty carpooling moms to manipulative stoners, abortions to
adultery, White Elephant is a vivid book from a seasoned artist turned
writer. Mako Idemitsu, daughter of Rockefeller-esque petroleum executive
Sazo Idemitsu, reconfigures her own family discord to reflect on the
binds of being female in this gorgeous English translation.
Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, Mako Idemitsu immigrated to the
United States in 1963 where she met and married abstract expressionist
painter Sam Francis. Disillusioned with housewife life she picked up an
8mm camera and became a pioneer in experimental video and the feminist
art movement of the 1970s. Internationally acclaimed, her work has been
featured in major museums worldwide and is included in the MOMA's
permanent collection. This is her debut novel.
Award-winning translator Juliet Winters Carpenter has rendered the
works of Abe Kobo, Fumiko Enchi, and Minae Mizumura. Within the year she
will be the first person to have won the prestigious Japan-US Friendship
Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature twice.
