Shadow Child

March 15, 2018
A mother's traumas haunt her twin daughters, whose own intricate relationship further complicates an intense psychodrama.What begins as a thriller--who tried to strangle Hana Swanson's identical twin sister, Kei, found unconscious in the shower?--morphs rapidly into something far more melancholy and introspective in Rizzuto's (Hiroshima in the Morning, 2010, etc.) second novel. Narrated in multiple voices, it explores the sisters' contrasting identities and responses to their mother Lillie's experience as a Japanese-American during and after World War II. Lillie, an orphan, marries Donald, the son of Japanese immigrants, soon after the U.S. is attacked at Pearl Harbor. Soon, Lillie and her new family are relocated to Manzanar, a harsh internment camp, where she gives birth to a son, Toshi. Then, after Donald refuses to foreswear allegiance to the Japanese emperor, his father manages to get the family passage on a Swedish ship heading for Japan. The family settles in Hiroshima, where history will catch up with them. Lillie is a poisoned survivor of the atomic bomb, while Donald and Toshi disappear. Resettled in Hawaii after the war, Lillie gives birth to Hana and Kei, the good twin and the rebellious one, who sometimes swap identities or merge into a single personality, Koko, or can even seem to contain their lost brother, "two souls battling for the same body." Rizzuto's blurring of the twins' identities is perhaps the most interesting aspect of her relentlessly dark saga of loss, fear, guilt, alienation, and scarring (both physical and psychological). Hana's narration predominates, a broken account of an unhappy childhood leading to a withdrawn adulthood. Crises, revelations, and corrected misunderstandings fill the final chapters, offering some clarity but not much cheer.A long and winding fusion of sorrow and psychological processing.

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March 26, 2018
Rizzuto’s quasi-thriller turned weighty multigenerational saga follows three women facing debilitating illness, alienation, and extreme isolation against the backdrop of war and a devastating environmental catastrophe. As the novel opens in the early 1970s, 24-year-old half-Japanese, half-white Hana returns to her sparse New York City apartment to find her estranged twin sister, Kei, knocked out cold in the bathtub, apparently the victim of a break-in. Kei falls into a coma and is hospitalized, and as Hana tries to figure out what happened, she visits Kei and tells her stories about their childhood in 1950s and ’60s Hawaii, hoping it will help revive her. Of particular import are Hana’s recollections of competing for their mother’s attention, the time Kei nearly got swept away in a tsunami, and—the book’s finale—the terrifying event that drove the sisters apart. While the chapters told from Hana’s and Kei’s perspectives are mostly gripping, the story line that carries the most heft is a third from the perspective of their mother, Japanese-American Lillie, that takes place before the twins are born and explores anti-Japanese prejudice during World War II, the horrors of Japanese internment camps, and the bombing of Hiroshima (themes also explored in Rizzuto’s memoir, Hiroshima in the Morning). Though the book meanders a bit too much, it’s bolstered by its convincing historical detail and its satisfying characters. A well-paced page-turner it’s ultimately not, but Rizzuto’s ruminative portrait of a ravaged family on the precipice of forgiveness leaves a lasting impression.

June 1, 2018

Twins Hanako and Reiko were once close enough to share the nickname "Koko." Growing up in Hawaii, the girls lived a sheltered life with their mother, who suffered from mysterious fainting spells. By high school, though, the girls had separated into "good" girl Hana, the class valedictorian; and rebel Kei, the popular girl. After a traumatic incident during her senior year, Hana flees to New York for college, breaking ties with both her mother and sister. Six years later, Kei is attacked in Hana's apartment when she reaches out to her twin after their mother's death. Who was the man Hana glimpsed leaving the building and why did he do a "double take" at seeing her? The crime stirs hidden emotions for Hana as she tries to save her sister by exploring memories of the past. Interspersed with the sisters' story are chapters relating their mother's life as an adopted Japanese American during World War II, including internment and exile to Japan after her marriage to a Japanese man. Both mother and daughters struggle to identify their true selves in relation to one another and the outside world. VERDICT National Book Critics Circle finalist Rizzuto (Why She Left Us; Hiroshima in the Morning) blends historical fiction and mystery into a haunting examination of identity and family in this perfect book club choice.--Catherine Coyne, Mansfield P.L., MA

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