“As Mockett reveals, the ghosts of our mothers are always within us.”—Amy Tan
Picking Bones from Ash
A Novel
- “A reader has the sense that even the author was driven by her most powerful character: the original mother, raising her daughter alone, shunned by villagers, forced to make decisions that haunt her descendants.”—The Los Angeles Times
Ghosts lurk in the bamboo forest outside the tiny northern Japanese town where Satomi lives with her elusive mother, Atsuko. A preternaturally gifted pianist, Satomi wrestles with inner demons. Her fall from grace is echoed in the life of her daughter, Rumi, who unleashes a ghost she must chase from foggy San Francisco to a Buddhist temple atop Japan’s icy Mount Doom. In sharp, lush prose, Picking Bones from Ash examines the power and limitations of female talent in our globalized world.
$15.00
Purchase at:
About the Author
Credit: Sylvie Rosokoff
Praise
- “Solid and graceful. . . . Mockett combines the best elements of a mystery story, ghost story, magical realism and the complex difficulties in deciding what is ‘best’ for our elders and offspring.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
- “Mockett succeeds where many others fail: making the reader care.”—Publishers Weekly
- “Deeply preoccupied with girls, talent, and power.”—Maud Newton
- “A voice so authentic and eloquent it is hard to believe this is Mockett’s first novel.”—largehearted boy
