Review of Inheritors, by Asako Serizawa

Inheritors by Asako Serizawa

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


These interconnected stories of an extended Japanese family span the time before and after World War II, in Japan and the U.S., from the early 20th century to the near future. Gripping, multivalent, and labyrinthine, the stories don’t flinch from engaging difficult topics, including “comfort women,” a Japanese bioweapons facility in China that used human subjects, incendiary bombs falling on Tokyo, Japanese suicide torpedoes, and encounters with American GIs after the war. In the process, family members are damaged, lost and dislocated. The stories cover a spectrum of motivations and perspectives: from pacifists and Communists, doctors and intellectuals; to migrants to the U.S. and ardent Japanese nationalists. Specific themes resurface throughout: the maze or labyrinth, including the puzzle-like intersections among stories; the garden, offering promise and hope for the future – until it bangs up against the climate crisis; and the encapsulated self, unable to connect with those they love or indeed with the world at large – “They waited too long. They had already passed each other in the night” (193). Serizawa’s imagery is rich with embodiment and sensations -- from light and dark, to gut and heart, to staring eyes and listening ears. “The walls shimmered; the air pulsated, a luminous agitation Masaaki would experience again only in the final moments of his own life” (209). The characters’ history and heritage unfurl through artifacts such as memories, news-clippings, or photos; and fluid, gut-punching moments of self-revelation. My reading of the book was complicated by memories of my uncle in the Navy, who married a survivor of Nagasaki some time after the war and brought her home to America. As a child I was drawn to the kimono and geta, the puzzle-box and Japanese dolls they gifted me. This book helped me realize that their story must have been more complicated than I could have known.



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