Inheritors - by Asako Serizawa (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the PEN/Open Book Award
Winner of The Story Prize Spotlight Award

A kaleidoscopic portrait of five generations scattered across Asia and the United States, Inheritors is a heartbreakingly beautiful and brutal exploration of a Japanese family fragmented by the Pacific side of World War II. A retired doctor is forced to confront the moral consequences of his wartime actions. His brother's wife, compelled to speak of a fifty-year-old murder, reveals the shattering realities of life in Occupied Japan. Half a century later, her estranged American granddaughter winds her way back East, pursuing her absent father's secrets. Decades into the future, two siblings face the consequences of their great-grandparents' war as the world shimmers on the brink of an even more pervasive violence. Grappling with the legacies of loss, imperialism, and war, Inheritors offers an intricate tapestry of stories illuminating the complex ways in which we live, interpret, and pass on our tangled histories.

Review Quotes

"Stunning. . . . Serizawa's brave storytelling gives us more than an epic arc. She creates a narrative that is in and of itself a multidimensional space." --NPR

"Gripping . . . . Serizawa's fiction is convincingly rooted in the intimate, yet still provocatively collective, quandaries of her characters." --The New York Times Book Review

"Serizawa's ability to weave complex histories into the personalexperiences of her characters proves that life is anything but linear." --The Boston Globe

"This splendid book is a sword through the heart. Asako Serizawa depicts with rare acuity and nuance several generations of one far-flung family as it's buffeted by the forces of war, migration, displacement, and that ultimate crucible, time."--Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

"These stories by Asako Serizawa are tremendous, intimate, startling, and essential; they show us how the past is sooften the most powerful force in what we idly call thepresent." --Rivka Galchen, author of Little Labors

"Stunning. . . . With beautiful lyrical prose, Serizawa presents a powerful and heartbreaking look into the ways war, colonization, and loss affect not only the survivors, but the generations that inherit these stories." --Booklist

"With her collection, Serizawa has made a point to pulltogether the emotional pieces of these devastating regional and world events. . . . It's a noble undertaking, and one that feels necessary to remove some of the teeth from the horrors of that time for those who inherit it." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant, and profoundly moving. Asako Serizawa imbues her characters with so much depth and generosity that I felt as if I were reading about people I already knew and loved. An intensely powerful book by a writer with endless talent." --Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans

"Powerful, intelligent. . . . A book that deserves to becomea crucial pillar in the literature of war. . . . Inheritors reveals an author of fierce intellect looking at war legacies from this angle and that, working her way into their nuances. By deconstructing the toolkit of the novel, Serizawa dodges the inevitability of a war narrative to offer a wistful hope or a melodramatic tragedy. Instead, she creates a more powerful form in which she can align the pieces to magnify each other like the lenses of a telescope." --Kenyon Review

"[A] dynamic debut collection. . . . Serizawa delivers an elegant, stimulating web of stories." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"I was struck again and again not only by the remarkable scope and multiplicity of Inheritors but by the voices Serizawa inhabits--each is so distinct and yet wonderfully intimate. A book to be savored, slowly, overflowing with lifeblood and endurance." --Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown & Others

"An assured debut." --Kirkus Reviews

"Powerful tales of men and women struck by war; in Serizawa's stories, war has no winners." --Asian Review of Books

"Masterly. . . . A seamless collection." --Library Journal

"Powerful. . . . A meticulously plotted narrative puzzle." --Shelf Awareness

About the Author

Asako Serizawa was born in Japan and grew up in Singapore, Jakarta, and Tokyo. A recent fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, she has received two O. Henry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. She currently lives in Boston. Inheritors is her first book. www.asakoserizawa.com