The Electrical Field - Hardcover

Sakamoto, Kerri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0676971261 ISBN 13: 9780676971262

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 1998

Synopsis

A rare and powerful novel about memory and murder, and the unusual friendship that develops between an ageing Japanese-Canadian woman and a young girl desperate to uncover the truth.

When the beautiful Chisako and her lover are found murdered in a park, members of the small Ontario community must finally acknowledge certain inescapable truths about each other. The Electrical Field slowly exposes all those implicated in the murders - particularly Miss Saito, the novel's unreliable narrator, through whom we gradually discover the truth. Asako Saito, middle-aged, caring for her elderly, bedridden father and her distracted younger brother, seems to be a passive observer. But as the facts become known, and events are cast in different light, Miss Saito turns out to be central to the crime. To understand her connection to the murders, she must first confront her past and her craving for an emotional connection that has profound consequences. Set in the 1970s, The Electrical Field reaches deep into the past, and into Canada's communal response to war. Kerri Sakamoto gives us a masterful, elegant story of passion, memory and regret, and beautifully illuminates the life of an ordinary woman.

The Electrical Field is sure to be among the most discussed books of the season. This haunting and unsettling novel reads like the best thrillers and introduces a gifted Canadian writer.

About this title

About the Author

Kerri Sakamoto is a Toronto-born writer of fiction as well as film and visual arts criticism. Her short stories have appeared in Charlie Chan is Dead, an anthology of Asian-American fiction, and in publications such as The Quarterly and West Coast Line.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I happened to be dusting the front window-ledge when I saw her running across the grassy strip of the electrical field. I stepped out onto the porch and called to her. I could tell she heard me because she slowed down a bit, hesitated before turning. I waved.

"Sachi!" I shouted. "What is it?"

She barely paused to check for cars before crossing the concession road in front of my yard; not that many passed since the new highway to the airport had been built. Shyly she edged up my porch steps to where I stood. She was out of breath, her eyes filled with an adult's burden. "I don't know," she said, panting. "Maybe it's nothing."

The sweat glistened on her, sweet, odourless water, and it struck me as odd, her sweating so much -- a girl and a nihonjin at that; we nihonjin, we Japanese, hardly perspire at all, and the late spring air was cool that day. I sat down to signal calm and patted the lawn chair beside me. She sat but kept jiggling one knee. Finally she stood up again. "Yano came and took -- ," she began.

"Mr. Yano," I broke in, though everyone called him Yano, even myself. "He took Tam out of class this morning. Kimi too."

"Tamio," I corrected her, as if I could tell her what to call the boy, her special friend. As if I could tell her anything. "A doctor's appointment, maybe?"

She shook her head as a child does, flinging her hair all about. Though at thirteen going on fourteen, she no longer was a child, I reminded myself.

"Yano looked crazy," she went on. "Like I've never seen him. His hands were like this." She clenched her fists and gritted her brace-clad teeth: a fierce little animal. "He hadn't taken a bath, not for a long time," she said, pinching her flat nose and grimacing. "Worse than usual. Everybody noticed."

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0676971261
• ISBN 13: 9780676971262
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 305