(WPF) My Year of Meats, by Ruth Ozeki, 4+ stars

[NancyJ]

My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki was a very pleasant surprise. I hated the title, but I found the book refreshing, entertaining, and thought-provoking. This is a much easier read than Ozeki's newest book (which is in this year's Tournament of Books), so it might be a good introduction to the author, for our WPF Author challenge.

Jane Takagi-Little is a Japanese American woman who is coordinating the filming of a Japanese TV Show called "American Wives," sponsored by the American meat industry. Each show is set in a different US state with a real-life family and a favorite recipe. It is intended to improve sales of US beef to Japanese families. The book is half set in Japan, and also features Akiko, a young Japanese woman and her chavinistic ad agency husband (who is in charge of the show). Jane and Akiko are very different women, but they have interesting parallels in their lives, such as fertility concerns, complicated relationships, and a love for Shonagan's The Pillow Book. Akiko watches Jane's show every week, giving us a sense of the audience reaction.

Jane considers herself a documentary film maker, so she pushes against the sponsor's demand to feature "wholesome" traditional families and beef recipes. I liked spending time with Jane and learning about her life in both America and Japan. The cultural contrasts were interesting, and some of the characters and filming situations were amusing. The job gets more serious and dramatic when they film a family connected to the cattle industry. This book taught me things about the food industry in the 1990's that I probably should have known at the time. I liked how Jane connected with the families whose lives she affected.

[NancyJ]

I forget to mention the audio performance and songs. The audio narration of this book is very good. The narrator is able to handle American accents from different regions, and Japanese accents, though one of Japanese characters was so obnoxious it almost sounded like a caricature. The audio including some really beautiful singing. Either they were dubbed, or the narrator did an amazing job sounding like a black southern Gospel singer, and a male blues singer.