A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

This was as much a book about the relationship between a mother and daughter as it was a devastating reflection on the bombing on Nagasaki during WWII. The first part of the book (and several chapters throughout as well) are difficult to get through while Amaterasu recalls desperately searching for her grandson and daughter after the atomic bomb. The descriptions of the bodies of both the dead and the survivors were, at times, almost too much for me and I would have to take a break from the book.

After all their losses Amaterasu and her husband Kenzo decide to leave Japan, the place of too many memories and move out to California. However, despite the distance between California and Japan, sharing the Pacific Ocean with Japan is too much of a connection and they settle in Philadelphia where decades later a man shows up on her doorstep claiming to be her grandson.

From there we do much flip flopping to the past and back to the present through memories and letters Hideo brings with him. Letters he hasn't read himself, but come from his adoptive parents. The characters were rich and the story was twisted around itself so much that I felt a little lost at times trying to remember where (in time) she was at and who she was talking to/about.

There is so much regret here and so much pain. It was a hard time to read a book about a Bachan when I just lost mine, but the similarities between Amaterasu and my Bachan were very few. Even though the book is bleak and melancholy it ends with hope for second chances and forgiveness so you're not left feeling like a grey cloud is hovering over you.