Inheritance From Mother: A Novel [B2047]

2019 PB in nice clean condition. This Osaragi Jiro Award-winning novel demystifies the notion of the selfless Japanese mother and the adult daughter honor-bound to care for her. Mitsuki Katsura, a Japanese woman in her mid-fifties, is a French-language instructor at a private university in Tokyo. Her husband, whom she met in Paris, is a professor at another private university. He is having an affair with a much younger woman. In addition to her husband's infidelity, Mitsuki must deal with her ailing eighty-something mother, a demanding, self-absorbed woman who is far from the image of the patient, self-sacrificing Japanese matriarch. Mitsuki finds herself guiltily dreaming of the day when her mother will finally pass on. While doing everything she can to ensure her mother's happiness, she grows weary of the responsibilities of being a doting daughter and worries she is sacrificing her chance to find fulfillment in her middle age. Inheritance from Mother not only offers insight into a complex and paradoxical culture, but is also a profound work about mothers and daughters, marriage, old age, and the resilience of women.

From recent-ish Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Absolutely loved every minute of it."; "This novel is superbly done throughout. Especially effective was the obvious internal and external struggle of Mitsuke's inherited nature and responsibility of caring for an aged mother, no matter the abuse. Her cheating husband becomes almost secondary as we see her enormous personal growth which leads to an excellent ending."; "Wow, this was an incredibly complex book about the fraught relationships between mothers and children, and also about how women choose relationships that might not be good for them ultimately. The main character's journey of self discovery was really powerful, but because it is a Japanese book, it was understated and it is not magically resolved by the end as you might see in a US-based story (which is why I love Japanese novels!). I enjoyed this book and will look for another by this author."