ulie Otsuka’s third novel, , is a book of voices. A chorus, yes—but also a collective. Otsuka makes this explicit from the opening paragraph, which introduces first person plural as the novel’s earliest, and perhaps most distinctive, register. This blurring (between the individual and the communal, the particular and the universal) is, brings a similar approach to the experience of interned Japanese Americans during World War II, while , her PEN/Faulkner Award–winning 2011 follow-up, addresses Japanese picture brides. In all three books, perspective is slippery. We are never quite certain of where we stand.
