Pull Me Under

August 15, 2016
In Luce’s (Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail) debut novel,
a Japan-born mother leaves her family
in Colorado and travels back to Japan to attend the funeral of her estranged father, a world-renowned violinist. As a girl, Rio Silvestri fatally stabbed a bully at school, a crime whose shame led her to move to the United States, change her name, and keep her identity a secret from her husband and daughter. The novel’s first two acts deal directly with Rio’s slow exhumation of her past, including a reunion with Ms. Danny, her teacher at the time of the murder. After accompanying Ms. Danny on a revealing spiritual pilgrimage, Rio, unable to prove her identity, is arrested by Japanese authorities at her childhood home. Her imprisonment brings her American family to Japan, where her past is finally laid bare. Set mostly in the countryside, Luce deftly evokes Japan without exoticizing it, though a structure heavy on flashback undercuts too much of the drama. But the final act is the novel’s strongest and most confident, weaving the book’s threads together and leaving a lasting reverberation. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown.

Debut novel from the award-winning author of the story collection Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (2013).Rio Silvestri is a nurse living in Boulder, Colorado. She has a husband, Sal, and a daughter, Lily. Sal and Lily both know that Rio grew up in Japan and that she's estranged from her father. What they don't know is that, before she changed her name, Rio was Chizuru Akitani, daughter of the world-famous violinist Hiro Akitani. Nor do they know that, when she was 12 years old, Chizuru Akitani killed one of her classmates. When Hiro dies, Rio decides to go back to Japan for his funeral. While there, she discovers new truths about her father--and herself--and her carefully constructed life begins to unravel. For a book about murder, rage, and explosive family secrets, this novel is shockingly dull. The story moves at a plodding pace, all sense of momentum undercut by Luce's apparent inability to distinguish telling details from narrative clutter. For example, there's a whole paragraph devoted to "Sal's famous blueberry-mint vinaigrette," but Rio remains, throughout, a cipher. Momentous events occur, but the protagonist doesn't really change, and readers will end the novel with no better sense of who or what Rio is--or who or what Chizuru was--than they had at the beginning. It emerges that Chizuru was an unhappy child, bullied at school and neglected by her father. Her mother, a free-spirited American artist, killed herself. But not every child who suffers adversity becomes a killer. Rio refers to the "black organ" inside her, which is a lovely metaphor but in no way illuminating. And the redemptive note on which the novel ends feels unearned--not in a moral sense but aesthetically--and disingenuous, self-help platitudes from a solipsistic heroine who has learned nothing from her journey. A potentially interesting story sapped of interest by slow pacing and lack of character development. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from December 1, 2016

Luce's debut novel (after the short story collection Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail) begins in a juvenile detention center in Japan after Chizuru Akitani, a hafu (half-Japanese/half-American) middle-school student, kills her bully. Her American mother had recently committed suicide, leaving Chizuru in the care of her father, a world-renowned violinist more interested in his music than his daughter. Following her release from the center, Chizuru changes her name to Rio and moves to the United States to attend college, where she studies to become a nurse. She soon marries and has a daughter, but her peaceful middle-class life is disrupted when a package from her recently deceased father arrives at her home in Boulder, CO. Rio travels to Japan for his funeral, where she meets up with Ms. Danny, her favorite teacher from middle school. In Luce's world there is no such thing as coincidence, and the two women embark on a pilgrimage. This chance meeting forces Rio to come to terms with her past in ways Chizuru never could have imagined. VERDICT This novel about identity, family, bullying, and violence never loses its center. Readers will empathize with Rio, a complex, angry yet sympathetic character.--Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. Lib., MD

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2016
Luce follows her hit story collection, Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (2013), with a debut novel about secret lives and selfhood. The daughter of a respected Japanese classical-music composer and an American woman who committed suicide, Rio Silvestri, a nurse, now lives in Boulder with her loving husband, teenage daughter, and a passion for long-distance running. When she receives a package containing artifacts and the news that her father has died, Rio faces the dark past she has spent her life running from: as a teenager living in Japan, she murdered a school bully and was sent to an institution for disturbed youth. Having hidden her shameful history from her family, Rio now travels alone to her father's funeral in Japan to face all that she left behind. Striking an unlikely friendship with her high-school English teacher, Rio explores ancient temples and forgotten memories on a journey to discover courage and renewed affection for those she loves. Understated yet emotionally gripping, Luce's novel is an intimate portrayal of one woman's search for identity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)