A young girl in Japan must carry on after her mother's suicide.
Shizuko’s Daughter by Kyoko Mori is a young adult novel that delicately handles the very serious subject of suicide. Shizuko is alive at the beginning, but her story is really told by those who knew her. Shizuko takes her own life, and her daughter, Yuki, must continue to live under the shadow of her mother’s decision. The book follows Yuki from middle school to college as she copes with missing her mother. Most of the story is Yuki’s, with the voices of other family members woven in occasionally.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Yuki is an only child who rarely sees her father and spends most of her time with her mother. Shizuko instills her own love of nature, beauty, and art in her daughter. Yuki seems strong and unafraid, though she is really still a child. She inherited that from her mother as well. Before marrying Yuki’s father, Shizuko refused an arranged marriage to a rich man. Though she boldly went to break off the engagement, she spent the night before worrying over her decision.
A Difficult Question
Two years before her death, Shizuko asks Yuki what she would do if something happened to her. Yuki tells her that she would be sad, that she’d never forget her, but she would still go on. Later, Yuki regrets those words, wishing she could take them back because she feels she cannot go on after her mother dies.
Cultural Constraints
After Shizuko’s death, Yuki lives with her father and stepmother. Her father is a cold man, and her stepmother, a bitter woman, had been his mistress for years. When Yuki calls him at work after she finds her mother’s body, he tells her not to call the ambulance, and that he’ll come with the doctor. An ambulance would alert the neighbors to a problem.
The dictates of society carry a lot of weight in this story. Yuki is often at odds with others because she values honesty. Honor is important in Japanese culture and sometimes the characters do not mind pretending to preserve honor. This really bothers Yuki. She hasn’t learned that honesty doesn’t mean saying everything you think. Her father and stepmother feel that Yuki always tries to make them look bad. They constantly worry about that the neighbors will think that they are bad parents because of Yuki’s actions. Sadly, they do not stop to reflect on how their mistreatment of Yuki contributes to the unhappiness of the household. Yuki grows up in a cold, unsupportive environment. She is fond of her mother’s family, but rarely sees them because by custom, children belong to their fathers.
Serious Subject Matter
This is a book for mature readers, in part because it deals with suicide, but also because of Mori’s handling of other matters. She is very subtle about the intricacies of adult relationships, and it takes maturity to appreciate this. Mori, who was raised in Kobe, Japan and came to the U.S. to go to college, has an interesting viewpoint on Japanese and American cultural norms. For more insight, older teens could read The Dream of Water, Kyoko Mori’s memoir. Shizuko’s Daughter fictionalizes actual events from Mori’s life, and the memoir is a good companion to the novel.
Shizuko's Daughter
Henry Holt and Company (1993)
256 pages (hardcover edition)
