Woman running in the mountains

Readers await this novel by lauded Japanese author Tsushima in poetic, polished translation by Harcourt and with an introduction by Lauren Groff. At 21, Takiko is already an established resident of the edges of this 1970s society. Her work is mundane; home is cramped and stifling in the dire shadow of a violent alcoholic father. Takiko stays out and wanders the city for respite. Realizing she is pregnant, she stoically, methodically prepares for an unplanned, "illegitimate" baby despite her mother's raging. Takiko's six-day stay in the relative peace of a maternity ward has revelatory moments. Her reveries are sparked by leaves outside her window, as she sees even the ordinary with "a strange bright clarity, clean and limpid in the summer sun." She has lucid visions of faraway blue mountains where things appear like quartz and amethyst. Her visions are otherworldly, beckoning. Home with her baby, Takiko is re-enveloped in perpetual clamminess and chaos; but now she has seen glimmers of good fathers, happy families. Takiko gets a mountain experience, and a second six-day awakening brings hope.

The quiet and elegant latest in English from Tsushima (Territory of Light), first published in Japan in 1980, is a moving portrait of a woman struggling to figure out who she is amid societal and familial expectations. Takiko, 21, is a single mother--her child the result of a one-night stand with a married coworker--who is physically abused by her father and constantly shamed by her mother. Many scenes are dedicated to simple moments, like Takiko admiring a view from a hospital window, yet underneath it all is the pulsing pressure of society's burdens on her to put her role as a mother first. Tsushima depicts in gentle, often beautiful prose the ways Takiko navigates the financial and physical difficulties of motherhood as a working woman. While the plot loses direction in the middle, save a few memorable scenes in which Takiko fights with her father or speaks with a friend, Tsushima's attention to detail and grace with language carry the story until the third act, where Takiko's internal struggles culminate in her self-realization. This sticks the landing as a passionate, urgent story about desire and self-identity. (Feb.)