Dreaming Water

April 8, 2002
Tsukiyama (The Language of Threads) has a style at once evocative and formal, well suited to historical romances; now she takes on contemporary drama. At 38, Hana Murayama is dying of Werner's syndrome, a genetic defect that causes premature aging. Hana is almost totally dependent on her mother, Cate, who at 62 is still recovering from the sudden death of her husband, Max. As a child during WWII, Max had been interned with other Japanese-Americans in a camp in Wyoming and subsequently went on to teach history at a small northern California college. That background, her mother's love of gardening and her own usually feisty outlook are what Hana brings to her effort to live and die with dignity. Over the course of two days, Hana and Cate retrace in memory their lives and Max's. Their scattered and sometimes conflicting expectations are brought into sharp focus when Hana's best friend, Laura, now a successful East Coast lawyer, arrives with her two daughters, Hana's godchildren, allowing Hana and Cate to find a measure of the reconciliation that has eluded them. Tsukiyama has a wonderful ability to elicit delicate atmospherics; in particular, she uses the sense of touch to stunning effect. But the pacing is stilted, and neither Cate nor Hana allows herself a moment of private rage, although, in her thoughts, Cate strays briefly from the stoic. Her implicit frustration adds a note of vulnerability to the moving, subtle narrative. (May)Forecast:With more than 400,000 copies of her books in print, Tsukiyama should have no problem finding an audience for this title. Blurbs from Michael Chabon and Jane Hamilton won't hurt, either.

February 15, 2002
In this poignant tale from the author of Women of the Silk, Cate's daughter suffers from a disease that ages her at twice the normal rate. Redemption comes when Cate's childhood buddy arrives with two glowing little girls of her own.

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2002
At 62, Cate is caring for her seriously ill daughter, Hana, and grieving for her beloved husband, Max. Hana is suffering from Werner's Syndrome, a disease that has caused her body to age at twice the normal rate. Not yet 40, Hana is as frail as an 80-year-old woman. As Cate struggles to come to grips with her daughter's decline, she remembers happier days, when she met her husband, Max, a Japanese American who struggled with his memories of being interned during World War II. She also remembers when Hana was a child, with an overabundance of energy until the signs of Werner's surfaced in her twelfth year. Amid all this heartbreak, Tsukiyama finds hope. Hana, despite the devastations of Werner's, clings to life and lives for each day. When her childhood best friend, Laura, along with her two daughters, comes to visit Hana and Cate, Hana has mixed feelings about her arrival. But an unexpected connection with Laura's eldest daughter Josephine and the memories of her youth that Laura's presence brings back prove invaluable to Hana. Tragedies abound in the novel--Max's death, Hana's illness, Laura's loss of both parents--and yet they do not overwhelm it. Beautifully written, effused with both sadness and hope, Tsukiyama's novel cannot fail to move readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)