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Book Description

'On the fifth anniversary of my father's death, my mother confessed to his murder...'

Thus begins Nora Okja Keller's breathtaking first novel, which follows Beccah, a young Korean- American girl growing up in Hawaii, as she uncovers the dark secrets of her mother's dislocated past. From being sold into prostitution in the Japanese 'recreation camps' of World War II to the death of her first child and her unhappy marriage to an American missionary; Beccah understands why her mother lives in a spirit world she cannot share, and that clearly marks her as 'other'.

Powerful and lucid, Keller beautifully explores the depths of anguish and love that exist in the universally complicated relationship of mother and daughter.

Amazon.co.uk Review

"Comfort women"--that dumbing-down euphemism for the almost one quarter of a million Asian women who were made sexual slaves of the Japanese military during World War Two. Comfort Woman, the title of Nora Okja Keller's brave and utterly compelling first novel, tells of one such woman, the Korean Akiko, and her first-generation Hawaiian -American daughter Beccah. Narrated in their two voices, what is harrowingly pieced together is the horror of Akiko's enslavement in a Japanese camp, her escape by abandoning her very name, her country and for a time her voice, a forced marriage to an American missionary, more intent on her body than her soul. It is only the birth of Beccah that tethers her: "Blooming in the boundary between life and death, this child, with the tendril of her body, keeps me from crossing over and roots me to this earth." Beccah is in turns stifled and mortified by her mother's suffocating protectiveness, yet frightened by her absences into a spirit world of ravings and tyrannical ritual.

The fabric of their stories is shot through with the pain of Akiko's exile and of Beccah's rejection of her mother's incomprehensible omens--until after her death when she comes to know her mother's story and understands it as a part of her own.

The novel's subtle reflection on the nature of colonisation, of deracination and cultural transformation, is rendered through a wonderful precision of language and originality of characterisation. Comfort Woman is a rich testament to the unquenchable resilience of the human spirit.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Ruth Petrie

From Library Journal

In her first novel, Keller draws on the distinct voices of Beccah, an obituary writer, and her mother, Akiko, a spirit medium, to illustrate the the unconquerable love between mother and daughter. Beccah is lost on the path of life, unsure where her future lies, while her mother is lost in the past, her life caught up in the spirits of the dead, who have haunted her since her escape from the camps where she was a sex slave during the Japanese occupation of Korea in World War II. The story is told from these two women's points of view as each grapples with the terrors, real and imaginary, that dominate their lives. Beccah knows little of her mother's past, and when her mother dies, she is forced to confront the truth. Despite the atrocities recounted and the suffering endured, a fierce love binds these two spirits together, even in death. Highly recommended for all collections.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　-Erin Cassin, "Library Journal"

From Booklist

In her haunting debut novel, Korean American Keller tells of the complex, loving bond between a mother and daughter. Akiko had been sold into prostitution during World War II when still a child. Her harsh memories of her experiences as a "comfort woman" to the Japanese army alternate with her daughter Beccah's more straightforward account of her attempts to fit in with the popular kids at the local high school. Completely ignorant of her mother's history, Beccah is ashamed of her mother's spiritual "trances," in which she seems to commune with the spirit world, leaving Beccah to fend for herself. When an enterprising Filipino woman successfully markets Akiko as a gifted fortune-teller, their finances improve dramatically, but Beccah is still confused by her mother's strange behavior. In the powerful, moving conclusion, Beccah finally discovers the truth about her family history. With a deft and subtle use of humor and an assured, lyrical prose style, Keller threads her graceful narrative with themes of identity and the search for self.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Joanne Wilkinson

From Kirkus Reviews

First-novelist Keller, a Korean-American living in Hawaii, offers a shocking and unusual version of the mother-daughter relationship tale, in which a Korean woman whose experience as a ``comfort woman'' servicing Japanese troops during WW II profoundly distorts her own life and that of her Korean-American daughter. Poor, orphaned Kim Soon Hyo was only 12 when her oldest sister raised the money for her own dowry by selling Soon Hyo to the occupying Japanese. One of hundreds of girls kept like animals in stalls and forced to service long lines of soldiers, Soon Hyo was assigned the name Akiko--the name each girl inhabiting that stall had been given--then raped, beaten, humiliated, and adored on a daily basis, according to each soldier's whim. Profoundly traumatized, Soon Hyo struggled to survive by imagining herself emptied of her soul. As the war ends, Soon Hyo escapes to Pyongyang, where she marries an American missionary who knows her only by her hated Japanese name, returns with him to the US, and eventually gives birth to a daughter. When her husband dies, ``Akiko'' finds herself stranded in Hawaii with no money, a five- year-old child to care for, and a tenuous hold on her sanity. Rebeccah Bradley, Akiko's daughter, grows up in the shadow of her mother's periodic bouts of psychosis, periods that a number of locals view as true visitations from the spirit world and pay to witness, thus providing a modicum of financial support for the two females. Rebeccah, ignorant of her mother's traumatic childhood, struggles mightily to free herself from the terror and embarrassment of Akiko's fits, eccentricities, and neglect. It is only after Akiko's death, when Rebeccah herself is almost 30, that she learns the terrible secrets buried in her mother's past. Not at all a pretty story, but a memorable one, powerfully told. Keller brings her Korean characters to vivid, passionate life. (Author tour)

Book Dimension

length: (cm)19.8 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)12.8