THE GARDENS OF KYOTO: A NOVEL - Softcover

Walbert, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860498817 ISBN 13: 9781860498817

Publisher: Scribner Paperback Fiction; Simon & Schuster, 2001

Synopsis

(Ellen tells of meeting the father of her child, of her sister's disappearance, of a friend's abortion. These are in fact the story's recurrent motifs: vanishing women, endangered children, and men permanently damaged by war. As for the titular gardens, they make but a brief appearance, in a book Randall bequests to the narrator. Yet Walbert's description of them lends an extra resonance to her themes of distance and loss, even as we discover that Ellen has been deceiving herself--and us--all along and poignancy that hindsight brings)

About this title

Review:

Nothing is quite as it should be in this first novel by Kate Walbert, author of the celebrated story collection Where She Went. Set in wartime Philadelphia, the story is told by Ellen, a character inhabiting a rather complex narrative device. Namely, she's looking back on the war years, from some future vantage point, recounting her experiences to her child. This framing device allows Walbert to create a novel in which the past is neither as innocent nor as simple as the reader assumes.

Ellen, the youngest of three sisters, lives for her annual visit to see her cousin Randall. Something in his odd-duck imaginings speaks to her, and their bond is cemented by the fact that they both have red hair. (Relationships have been built on less.) Yet this portrait of Randall is shadowed by loss; we know from the first that he will be killed in the war. Small wonder that nostalgia sweetens Ellen's account of their friendship: "Sometimes, when I think about it, I see the two of us there, Randall and me, from a different perspective, as if I were Mother walking through the door to call us for supper.... One will never grow old, never age. One will never plant tomatoes, drive automobiles, go to dances. One will never drink too much and sit alone, wishing, in the dark."

Ellen tells of meeting the father of her child, of her sister's disappearance, of a friend's abortion. These are in fact the story's recurrent motifs: vanishing women, endangered children, and men permanently damaged by war. As for the titular gardens, they make but a brief appearance, in a book Randall bequests to the narrator. Yet Walbert's description of them lends an extra resonance to her themes of distance and loss, even as we discover that Ellen has been deceiving herself--and us--all along. --Claire Dederer

About the Author:

Kate Walbert is the author of the novels A Short History of Women, named a top ten best book by The New York Times Book Review and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Our Kind, nominated for the National Book Award; and The Gardens of Kyoto, winner of the Connecticut Book Award. Walbert’s stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and the O. Henry Awards, and have twice been included in The Best American Short Stories.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner Paperback Fiction; Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1860498817
• ISBN 13: 9781860498817
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288