The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories
Product Description
Rebecca Otowa, an American woman who married into a traditional Kyoto family and has lived in Japan for over thirty years, offers a captivating collection of stories that illuminate everyday life in modern Japan. From feuding villages and family conflicts to quiet acts of rebellion and bittersweet reflections on marriage, she writes from the dual perspectives of insider and outsider, exploring universal themes of love, work, marriage, death, and generational tension. Translator Ginny Tapley-Takemori praises Otowa’s “delightful vignettes of life in Japan,” especially the sharp, humane insights into the differing expectations placed on women in Japanese and American cultures.
This illustrated volume blends fiction and nonfiction inspired by the author’s own experiences and family history. Each black-and-white drawing and story reveals another layer of Japanese life—its traditions, unspoken rules, and the private struggles that often remain hidden behind sliding doors.
- A Year of Coffee and Cake — A young American wife in the Tokyo suburbs begins to suspect her next-door neighbor of murdering an elderly relative.
- Rhododendron Valley — An elderly man with a terminal illness calmly plans his own suicide to spare his family further suffering.
- The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper — A reclusive young man develops a strange obsession with stealing shoes from temple doorways, until his hobby slowly consumes him.
- Genbei's Curse — A downtrodden daughter-in-law snaps at her demanding, sick father-in-law; years later, old and ill herself, she finally understands him.
- Trial by Fire — A gruesome true story from 1619, handed down in the author’s family, in which a land dispute is settled by an ordeal of fire.
- Love and Duty — The Japanese custom of “duty chocolates” on Valentine’s Day sparks unexpected consequences for one American woman and one Japanese woman in an international relationship.
- Uncle Trash — Told through mock newspaper articles, this is the darkly comic tale of an old hoarder, the frustration he causes his relatives, and his final act of revenge.
- Watch Again — A divorced man begins to stalk his ex-wife, only to confront unsettling truths about himself.
- Three Village Stories — A tea ceremony teacher, a vengeful son, and an ostracized old man anchor three sharp, atmospheric portraits of village life.
- The Rescuer — After dying in a train accident, a young man finds himself mysteriously tasked with saving others from suffering the same fate.
- Showa Girl — Based on a true family story: in 1948, a fifteen-year-old girl enters an arranged marriage with an older man newly returned from a Russian POW camp.
- Rachel and Leah — An older American woman looks back on her long, not always happy marriage to a Japanese husband.
- The Turtle Stone — Spanning from the 1950s to today, one man struggles to keep his family’s cake shop alive in a rapidly modernizing Kyoto.
Description
Product Description
Rebecca Otowa, an American woman who married into a traditional Kyoto family and has lived in Japan for over thirty years, offers a captivating collection of stories that illuminate everyday life in modern Japan. From feuding villages and family conflicts to quiet acts of rebellion and bittersweet reflections on marriage, she writes from the dual perspectives of insider and outsider, exploring universal themes of love, work, marriage, death, and generational tension. Translator Ginny Tapley-Takemori praises Otowa’s “delightful vignettes of life in Japan,” especially the sharp, humane insights into the differing expectations placed on women in Japanese and American cultures.
This illustrated volume blends fiction and nonfiction inspired by the author’s own experiences and family history. Each black-and-white drawing and story reveals another layer of Japanese life—its traditions, unspoken rules, and the private struggles that often remain hidden behind sliding doors.
- A Year of Coffee and Cake — A young American wife in the Tokyo suburbs begins to suspect her next-door neighbor of murdering an elderly relative.
- Rhododendron Valley — An elderly man with a terminal illness calmly plans his own suicide to spare his family further suffering.
- The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper — A reclusive young man develops a strange obsession with stealing shoes from temple doorways, until his hobby slowly consumes him.
- Genbei's Curse — A downtrodden daughter-in-law snaps at her demanding, sick father-in-law; years later, old and ill herself, she finally understands him.
- Trial by Fire — A gruesome true story from 1619, handed down in the author’s family, in which a land dispute is settled by an ordeal of fire.
- Love and Duty — The Japanese custom of “duty chocolates” on Valentine’s Day sparks unexpected consequences for one American woman and one Japanese woman in an international relationship.
- Uncle Trash — Told through mock newspaper articles, this is the darkly comic tale of an old hoarder, the frustration he causes his relatives, and his final act of revenge.
- Watch Again — A divorced man begins to stalk his ex-wife, only to confront unsettling truths about himself.
- Three Village Stories — A tea ceremony teacher, a vengeful son, and an ostracized old man anchor three sharp, atmospheric portraits of village life.
- The Rescuer — After dying in a train accident, a young man finds himself mysteriously tasked with saving others from suffering the same fate.
- Showa Girl — Based on a true family story: in 1948, a fifteen-year-old girl enters an arranged marriage with an older man newly returned from a Russian POW camp.
- Rachel and Leah — An older American woman looks back on her long, not always happy marriage to a Japanese husband.
- The Turtle Stone — Spanning from the 1950s to today, one man struggles to keep his family’s cake shop alive in a rapidly modernizing Kyoto.
