The August 9, 2013, book club meeting will be at Anjanette's house, and the book is "The Samurai's Garden: A Novel" by Gail Tsukiyama. Here is a synopsis from Amazon.com:
The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses
the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber
backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named
Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal
village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for
by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course
of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only
physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a
samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a
cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to
appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love
Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.
Leprosy is a topic from a prior book club meeting,
when we read "Moloka'i" in August of 2012.
Here are few reviews from Amazon.com:
"Tsukiyama brings a fluid, smooth elegance to the complicated story she tells."
—The San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"An exraordinary graceful and moving novel about goodness and beauty. Tsukiyama is a wise and spellbinding storytelling."
—Booklist
