This is one of the best generational sagas about Japan that I have read. All three women in the book represent a time of change, yet all three are multi-dimensional and understandable characters. It is difficult to find quality Japanese liturature in English by women. This is worthy of the name "classic"

I think her writing style is interestingly spare and understated, but that the novel overall suffers from being too obvious and pat...vaguely interesting in some ways, but not necessarily a good book.

The review above has been inadvertently transposed from another work and bears NO RELATIONSHIP to the book shown.

An atypical threesome relationship: the husband, his wife and his mother. In a culture where, not dissimilarly to the British culture, it is despicable to show your inner feelings. The wife and the mother quickly become competitive, but never admit it, hence the tragic ending.
A warning to our modern society, where, partly in response to the high divorce rate, many young adults tend to stick closer to their parents: this may become the cause, rather than the solution, of divorce problems.

Although set in the Japan of one century ago, this book is still actual. Increasingly, Japanese women flee marriage because she who marries a first-born son (this is the case for most young men, given the size of modern families), is expected to go and live with his parents.