Set in 1970s Japan, this tender and poetic novel about a young, single
mother struggling to find her place in the world is an early triumph by
a modern Japanese master.
Alone at dawn, in the heat of midsummer, a young woman named Takiko
Odaka departs on foot for the hospital to give birth to a baby boy. Her
pregnancy, the result of a brief affair with a married man, is a source
of sorrow and shame to her abusive parents. For Takiko, however, it is a
cause for reverie. Her baby, she imagines, will be hers and hers alone,
a challenge that she also hopes will free her. Takiko's first year as a
mother is filled with the intense bodily pleasures and pains that come
from caring for a newborn. At first she seeks refuge in the company of
other women--in the hospital, in her son's nursery--but as the baby
grows, her life becomes less circumscribed as she explores Tokyo, then
ventures beyond the city into the countryside, toward a mountain that
captures her imagination and desire for a wilder freedom.