In the Empire of Dreams - Hardcover

Highbridge, Dianne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569471460 ISBN 13: 9781569471463

Publisher: Soho Pr Inc, 1999

Synopsis

The lives of three foreign women, each one in search of something, become intertwined while working, studying, and living in Japan

About this title

Review

In the Empire of Dreams captures expatriate life in a way few novels can--its frustrations, its pleasures, the bittersweet pang of being "irrevocably other." For some of Dianne Highbridge's expats, life in Japan feels like coming home; without knowing it, they've been foreigners all their lives. They're "the real gaijin," as one character puts it,

The ones who can't go home, not just yet. The ones still here, still fumbling for the right words in a language made for not explaining, still searching for lovers whose embraces bring to mind no pain, still hopefully clapping hands before the shrines of gods who will never know them but whose indifference itself seems sweet. The uncertain, the messy, the screwed-up, her own kind.

In 10 self-contained chapters, Highbridge paints a series of messy, screwed-up lives. Elaine, the scholar; Cathy, the potter; Gwyneth, the prim Englishwoman whose flight from her homeland fills her with glee: "She escaped! She escaped from everything! From grubby men on bus queues, from headscarves, and gravy, and Tories!" The structure is fragmented, but like so much about this novel, it works: in these vignettes Elaine and Cathy and all of their friends brush by one another much like expatriate acquaintances nodding in the street. Their Japan is one of cherry blossoms and tea ceremonies, to be sure, but it's also one of love hotels, department-store "disaster corners," and monotonous second-rate teaching jobs. Rather than pretending to tell us something new about Japan, Highbridge has told us something new about those who seek it out; the result is a delicate, unsentimental, and surprisingly cohesive book. --Chloe Byrne

About the Author

Dianne Highbridge was born and raised in Sydney where she went to university. After working in London bookshops for a time, she became a postgraduate student at the University of London. She then received a scholarship to the University of Tokyo to study the early twentieth century women's movement took her to Japan. Married in New York to a Japanese industrial designer, she has lived in Tokyo for a number of years. She has received grants from the Australia Council Literature Board and her stories and journalism have appeared in England, Australia, and the United States.

About this edition

• Publisher: Soho Pr Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1569471460
• ISBN 13: 9781569471463
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 244