The Printmaker's Daughter: A Novel

By Katherine Govier

“A compulsively readable novel” about one of the world’s great unknown artists, who lived under her father’s shadow in the city that would become Tokyo (The Globe and Mail).

Oei is the mysterious daughter of master printmaker Hokusai, most famed for his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Recounting the story of her life, she plunges us into the colorful world of Edo, in which courtesans rub shoulders with poets, warriors consort with actors, and the arts flourish in an unprecedented moment of creative upheaval. Oei and Hokusai live among writers, novelists, tattoo artists, and prostitutes, evading the spies of the repressive shogunate as they work on Hokusai’s countless paintings and prints. Wielding her brush, rejecting domesticity in favor of dedication to the arts, Oei defies all expectations of womanhood—all but one. A dutiful daughter to the last, she will obey the will of her eccentric father, the man who created her and who, ultimately, will rob her of her place in history.

“From the hothouse ferment of art studios, bordellos, and Kabuki theater to the tonic countryside, Govier’s spectacularly detailed, eventful, and emotionally stormy novel is populated by vivid characters and charged with searing insights into Japanese history and the diabolically difficult lives of women and artists.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Lavishly researched and brilliant. . . . Govier astonishes throughout in her ability to write epic themes intimately, particularly in the lyrical, absorbing, and intense final hundred pages.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Published in Canada under the title The Ghost Brush

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9780062100689

Katherine Govier

Katherine Govier’s most recent novel, The Ghost Brush, was published in the United States as The Printmaker’s Daughter, and in translation in Romania, Spain, Quebec, and Japan. Her novel Creation was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has won the Marian Engel Award and the Toronto Book Award, and has twice been nominated for the Trillium Book Award. The author of twelve previous books, Katherine Govier divides her time between Toronto, Ontario, and Canmore, Alberta.

Book preview

1.

Introduction to the Ghost

HEY, YOU! YOU with the big chin! Oei!"

He’s calling me.

I don’t answer him. Not yet.

I dip the tip of the brush in the ink bowl.

I let it sink. I lift it, turn it, and press it down into the ink again. Then I lift and tap.

I press it against the edge of the bowl, twisting so ink beads at the tip of the bristles and then drops back into the small, still, dark pool. Again I press the hairs of the brush into the ink, flattening the bulb against the bottom of the bowl, rolling it.

Don’t press so hard! the Old Man barks.

I bare my teeth. Shut up, Old Man. He laughs. Thinks he’s distracted me.

But my hand is zealous. To spite him I press for one full minute. I lift the brush from the bowl. It is not dripping, not full, but fully moist. I hold it over the paper, balanced in my fingers. I raise and lower it, ever so slightly, giving it breath, and then touch the point to paper. I begin the fine, fine lines of the courtesan’s nape hair. That which he has no patience to do, and no steady hand.

Oei!

I don’t answer. I stay inside my head.

I am Oei. Katsushika Oei. Katsushika I take from the place where my father was born. Oei is a pun on how he calls me. It means Hey, you! I have other names: Ago-Ago—he gave me that too—meaning Chin-Chin, calling attention to my big, stubborn jaw. Then there are the brush names: Tipsy, meaning just what you think; Flourishing Woman, self-evident. I’ve answered to many names. Though in this matter, as in others, I am no match for him.

He named himself for the North Star and for the thunder god; he named himself the Old Man Mad About Painting; he has named and new-named himself twenty times. To me he’s just the Old Man.

Some people call the Old Man difficult. I don’t agree. He is not difficult.

He is impossible.

True, I’m not easy myself. I do not comply. I mock, I dissemble, I glower. They say I was never properly trained to be a woman. The more sympathetic blame my father himself for this failure. It is a scandal. She paints but does not sew, they say. Hah! That could be my epitaph. Perhaps it is. But you would have to find my grave to know.

And that you cannot do.

2.

Edo, 1800

I WAS BORN.

Into the red squall of dawn, the teem of city. Into the vast numbers of townsmen with only one name.

The earth was flat.

The shogun ruled.

It was a Virtuous Regime, a Benevolent Regime, and there was no unexpected event.

I screamed. And why not? After Miyo and Tatsu, I was Ei, the third daughter of a penniless artist. My father’s first wife, who produced the first two daughters and also one son, was dead. My mother was the second woman to take on the job.

She looked critically at me, first of her children, fourth of his.

She has large ears, said my father in a tone of delight. He seized me. This one is mine!

My mother was morose. Large ears are lucky in men. Not in women.

She looks like a little dog, a Pekinese, he said. And look at this! He chucked my peculiar outsize chin. I will call her Ago-Ago.

Chin-Chin. Another of my flaws was thus pointed out to my mother. She became even more unhappy. I, on the other hand, became defiant and thrust my chin out farther.

There is self-will in that face, she said. It must be broken.

But my father laughed in amusement and delight. His laugh was like milk to me. He took me in his arms and I was his forever.

It was as if he’d never seen a baby before. He fed me rice water with the tip of his finger. He tied me in a sling and wore me under his ribs or on his back if he was working. From that day there were two of us, together. We slid through the clamorous throngs of our burgeoning city like carp in weeds. He said I was his good-luck charm. He did not break my self-will but made it.

And my black eyes did not close.

In years to come he did call me Ago-Ago, when he remembered, but most often he just called me.

Hey, you. Come here!

I was born in a hard time.

We the townspeople led an unmarked existence. We had rights to nothing, only to witness the grand shogun’s parade: the march of the doomed man to the Punishment Grounds, details of his crime painted on the placard he carried over his shoulder. We fed on brown rice and whispers of love suicides. The mouths of our actors were red gashes. We, the chonin, had one name—and no face.

In the years before my birth there was an artist called Sharaku. He made gargantuan faces with vast white, empty centers marked only with deep black lines for eyes and mouths spread in rage or fear or greed. But few people bought these pictures—they came too close to home, I think—and before long Sharaku and his work disappeared. Some people said he was a Noh actor and died of poisoning from the white face makeup. Other people said Sharaku was my father. They said that after this first failure he renamed himself and went on, and the proof that he had been Sharaku was that he never painted a big face again.

I don’t know if that was true. My father told me much, but not that.

It was true about the faces, though: my father could draw anything that moved and much that didn’t—dancers, elephants, oarsmen, mountains, gods, and devils. Waterfalls and waves stopped for his brush. Fuji showed its one hundred moods. But he never made a face. Eyes, nose, and mouth—for him these were only a few short, sharp lines, and that was it. Maybe the gossip was true and he thought faces wouldn’t sell. Maybe he wanted distance from his past. Maybe he wanted distance from us all. Henceforth, to him, we had no faces, only burdened backs and sinewed buttocks, slim thighs and crinkled toes and dancing torsos.

Oh, but such bodies we had. Such glories were in them. They were our prized possessions. By these bodies, we were making ourselves into people. Before I was born we were not quite human, according to our masters. The bakufu—a tent government set up on a field of war two hundred years before—kept the Tokugawa shogun in power. But as the eras passed, the bakufu remained. There were no wars; we didn’t fight with swords. We fought with words and pictures. Our pictures and our little storybooks cost pennies. But they had a strange power. They gave us news, gossip, celebrity, mementos. They celebrated the only pleasures we were allowed—Kabuki theater and love affairs and the small indulgences for our bodies.

The Tokugawa could not attack us directly; there were too many of us. Instead the enforcers attacked the messengers, our pictures; they called them decadent and tried to destroy them.

Think of all that clanking samurai power directed at these fragile sheets of paper. I want to laugh. Pictures and words don’t hurt anyone, except for those who are afraid of history. The bakufu aimed their laws at our insubstantial world. There were to be no pictures of the Tokugawa. Any reference to how they came to rule was punishable by death. Famine and flood might ravage the country, but to note such calamities would be a criticism of the shogun, who ruled celestial events as he did lesser beings. Therefore they were not to be acknowledged.

We appeared to obey. We told ghost stories and repeated legends from times past, and went to plays about the love affairs of great courtesans. We put our faith in unnatural creatures—demons and gods and ghosts. Our gossip traveled through whispers and pulpy yellow-back novels. We sang and danced and devised outrageous dress. The bakufu bogeymen uttered ordinances and staged clampdowns. They did not stop us, but they kept trying. They were a constant backdrop to my life, from my first squalling through my middle years until I was almost old enough not to care. Then, suddenly, they were gone. But that comes at the end of the story.

This is the beginning. The tiny tenement house. The mat on which we all lay, side by side; the soot-orange sun at dawn.

My birth was both lucky and unlucky. Lucky because I was born in the center of this magic. First my father’s words defined me, and then his pictures did. And unlucky to be under the thumb of another, weightier, power. And a daughter. In that terrible time. Lucky and unlucky.

That is Ei’s story.

I lay on my mat in the damp dark and the cold of the small room we shared. My father was working by the light of an oil lamp. Then he stood and blew it out. He opened the door to the night. White snow was emptying out of the heavens on us, thick as feathers. The snow erased the rooftops with its soft white brush, leaving only the thin, dark outline of tiles.

He lifted me in his arms and we went out to stand under the sky. We looked up. The snow fell straight down without fluttering, freighted, through the barren trees. There were no leaves to catch it. It melted on the lanterns. It fell around his feet and more snow followed. Snow blotted the ground, sopping up its color, and then melted, making the packed earth gleam.

I lay in his arms, warm, with the cold, airy flakes landing on my eyes, my cheeks, and my lips. Tongue out, I tasted them. Laughed at the cold, and the warmth of him. How safe I felt! How loved! We were one being.

The snow was a gift. I licked my lips, where it tasted sweet. My father stared and sighed. I thought it was for happiness, for holding me. Now I know differently—he was puzzling how to catch it on the page—but then I was safe in illusion.

What time is it? my mother called.

It is the Hour of the Rat, he said. The hour of romance. Then he muttered under his breath, to me, Or the hour of avoiding romance. He sighed and looked up, searching for his favorite stars. But they were hidden.

Illusion is shaken, a little.

Even a courtesan might delay awhile, he said, before necessity compels her to a client’s company. Examine herself in the mirror or tidy the empty glasses. But not for long: this is the hour. The hour of tyranny and love.

What did he mean?

Are you coming inside? my mother called again.

Here my father laughed. I knew his laugh better than my own. It was a laugh not heartless but mirthless, a laugh that saw everything and presumed nothing. He was no romantic. He laughed as if he were a free man, and he laughed with rue because he wasn’t.

Not yet! I hear the crier coming.

So what? cawed my mother. He’s not crying for you.

We heard footsteps, footsteps slapping the wet stone. The crier rose out of nowhere with a hood on his head and ran through the streets, stopping on bridges to make his announcement, then covered his head again and ran on. He was a nameless runner for Kawara-ban, a small broadsheet that sometimes appeared. It was illegal: we were not allowed to know the news. So he ran at night, perhaps to alert us to famine in the north. Or rice riots in the south. Earthquake or fire at the other end of the roads, in Osaka or Kyoto. Arrests and sometimes deaths. Scandal about corrupt officials of the town. Some people said these stories were nothing but rumors and gossip. But we who watched the roadways into this huge city—the largest in the world—could confirm the disasters by the trail of starving peasants coming our way.

The Kawara-ban man came closer. I could see his dark form through the curtain of snow. I thought he must be afraid. But my father said no, he was not afraid. He was doing his job.

I know now that this was not true. Of course he was afraid. We were all afraid: fear was required of us. Failure to feel fear was an offense under the law. But some seemed not to be afraid. My father was one of these. He too did his job.

Now we could hear the crier’s voice. I understood the tone of the words but not their meaning.

Look tomorrow! It will be posted. A new edict. New prohibitions. Artists and writers take care. Look tomorrow!

My father held me more closely against his chest. He prayed.

We went to bed.

Daylight had come. A layer of white was on us and on every surface. It was beautiful. I scooped up light balls of it and pushed them into my mouth. We stood by the signboard, and my father read aloud, stopping frequently for emphasis. A crowd of women, unable to decipher the characters, formed around us.

Behold the Senior Councilor’s new edict. He speaks with the authority of the shogun.

There have been books since times long past, and no more are necessary. Year after year people have applied themselves to useless tasks, including the production of picture books, and have charged large fees for their products. This is thoroughly wasteful.

Newly published books will be regarded as strictly undesirable if they are depraved or contain a medley of unorthodox ideas.

Amorous books are not good for public morality.

Wicked children’s books ostensibly set in ancient times will be regarded as undesirable.

We will review and censor all matter intended for publication, including picture books, readers, and novels. The sign of the censor—in the form of a circular seal with the character kiwame—must be stamped onto the drawing for the print after inspection and then cut into the printing blocks.

Those pictures that do not pass the censors will be seized and burned. The blocks will be destroyed. Persons who disregard this order will be accused in court.

If the necessity to print a new book does arise, inquiries must be made at the City Commissioner’s office.

There will be no news reporting. You are reminded that this was decreed in earlier times. However, the ban continues. There will be no true records such as those that can be rented from lending libraries. These are baseless rumors and will be seized. The lending libraries will be closed.

Blah, blah, blah, said my father to the women. Here we go. I’ll just get on to the end for you.

They shifted and protested: they wanted to hear it all.

I’m skipping all this part, he said, pointing to columns of characters. After this it degenerates into a harangue.

The Senior Councilor repeats his determination and asserts the rightness of the Old Way. We are losing the distinction between the esteemed and the despised. You people desire to imitate your betters, and to raise yourselves. This must end. We will root out corruption and laxity and enforce austerity and morality. We shall rid Japan of private interest and the destructive powers of passion and desire.

That was the end. He turned around and made a deep theatrical bow. The people were caught between fear and laughter.

3.

The Seven Stars

WHATEVER MY FATHER did, he did with a kind of double, lunging in but also holding back, as if he were his own shadow. He loved the crowd, but he also liked to stand aside, watching himself, the entertainer among us, remarking on how it looked. He saw himself eating or lying, making love. He was entertained by himself and all the rest of us. He was an artist first and last, an ordinary man rarely, in between.

That night he went inside, put me down, and lay beside my mother.

What did the edict say?

No more pillow pictures. No more picture books. No more libraries.

My mother shrieked and covered her head with a cloth. The pillow pictures for self-pleasuring were good sellers.

Be still, woman! He yawned, as if it were not important. It made her hysterical.

For a time he had made his living painting calendars. He delineated the long months and the short months; they changed every year. But an edict had made it illegal for common people to own or sell such a calendar. Calendars could be issued only by license of the shogun; the shogun alone was responsible for counting days and months, for celestial movement and changing seasons. Who could afford one of these official calendars? Only a lord or a lady.

But my father had not despaired. A calendar is a handy thing. People want to know what day it is. It’s a good market, and we won’t give it up. There is a way.

He began to make calendars that looked like simple pictures—a rooster or a chrysanthemum. Hidden inside the swirl of the flower petals or in the rooster’s feet were the characters giving the number of days. The townspeople would spot these and understand, and even enjoy the little game. The officials failed to notice, and we were saved, for a time.

But now it was books—picture books, storybooks, history books. Our mainstay.

My mother wept. "The bakufu have taken away the last thing. The last strand by which we cling to life . . ." She had her own dramatic flair.

Just a moment! said my father. This was a thing he often said. He had borrowed it from the Kabuki stage. It created a dramatic pause, heralded a grand gesture. A wordless grimace and a moment to make strategy.

He jumped out of bed and pounced, legs and arms wide apart. He made us laugh. We will make a new thing that he hasn’t thought to censor yet!

We felt reassured; we would get around this one too.

We children all went to sleep. It was the best way to keep warm.

On another night, the Old Man was working. It was rude to call him that, but that is what he was. Forty years old when I was born. Most men died by the time they were forty-five. I was awake with him that night. My mother had put the three older children down on the mat and lay sleeping beside them. She would wake up very early, when he was just lying down, and pluck at him to come to her for sex. How did they feed us four children who had already made our appearance? I never knew. But she was an impetuous soul. She must have been, to marry him.

From my close proximity I could sense my father’s frustration.

Look at this picture—it’s hopeless. Hopeless. He flung down his brush, covered his eyes with his fists.

I looked at the design. It was a view of the banks of the Sumida River, which ran through our city. There were tiny people and oxcarts, bridges and boats everywhere. Not bad, I thought. He smacked it.

Where is the life? he cried, rhetorically. You can’t smell the tannery downriver or the incense from the temple. You can’t hear ferrymen grunt as they’re poling on the river.

He was harsh with himself. There were hundreds like my father who lived in that world and painted it—making shop signs, theater sets, and the woodcut prints that were sold cheaply everywhere. Since he had displeased his master and was discarded, we were on our own. It was difficult; there were always others, more willing, to do any work.

For a time he was a middleman of peppers. He bought red peppers from a peasant and sold them from his back. And sometimes he found a private commission for a laughing picture, one that told a little sexual story and was useful in its way. Artists were in fashion, out of fashion, only as good as the day’s work—that was their lot.

Once in a while he was famous, his work was popular. At other times, he couldn’t sell a thing. He could not keep a good name, so he had taken on a new one. He called himself Sori.

I liked the painting. It is good, I told him. Still, he did have a point. Maybe it was too pretty.

What about the cries of the men being flogged on the grounds of the jailhouse? Fifty times for a light sentence, one hundred for a heavy? No no no no no. How about that glimmer of lantern light in the black canal water? I want the people who look at my pictures to hear the angry sob of a nighthawk taken by force! Nighthawk—that was a riverbank prostitute; I knew of them already.

He stomped around.

You can’t feel the rain.

He was wrong there. You could feel the rain. His rain was good.

How to capture it all? I want it all. I still need to learn, but how can I? There’s no teacher for what I need.

I held out my arms to be lifted. I tried to melt into his body.

He walked in small circles and patted my back. It calmed him. The proper teacher was his ears and eyes.

I know it’s in me. But how many years before I find it?

With a father like that my mission was clear: someone had to look out for him. Even now that he is long gone, if I close my eyes and breathe deeply, I can bring him back. I can feel his back and waist, where I clung to him as he jogged along. I feel the sweat of his neck on my arms. I lay my chest along his spine; his arms twine behind his back and turn so they prop up the sling, and I sit in the crossed palms of his hands. Oh, that safe nest of cupped fingers on my bottom. The warmth of them, the stir that only many years later I would know was sexual.

In my ears there is still the cold slosh of water against a wooden wharf and the charcoal sellers’ shouts in the alley. And in my nose I hold the musty air of autumn, the bitter chrysanthemum, the wet smeared leaves on the stones. All of it, all of it now gone, a paper world, a weightless world, a world of mad colors and things that died.

The other children belonged to my mother, but I was all his. Together we made the rounds of the city, with me slung on his back. It was altogether marvelous. The bang of clogs over the arched bridges was music. Beautiful objects were being made in every doorway: silk and velvet cut in patterns; hair combs and painted lanterns; baskets, bowls, and cards of celebration. Firemen ran by with long poles on their shoulders; bannermen shoved us into ditches so the daimyo could pass. The ghosts of dead servants lived under the bridges, and sword-bearing gods leaned out of the clouds.

WE LIVED IN Shitamachi, in two rooms, each one six tatami mats in size, in a single-story terraced house made of wood. This was the Low City, built on marshy land claimed from the tides, crisscrossed by canals and bridges. In the sun it was pretty, with bamboo overhanging the shacks and rushes along the waterways. The doors of whitewashed warehouses shone, and pilot boats pushed their way up the mirrored surface. On summer nights the dark water clucked invisibly from every side. There was the soft burr-up of frog and coo of roosting bird. But in winter it was dank and comfortless.

Tucked away farther down our alley were a storytellers’ hall, a barbershop, and a shooting gallery. This last was mainly an entertainment for lovers. My sisters and I used to watch the men put their arms around the ladies’ shoulders, showing them where to rest the shaft of the arrow. At the end of the alley, with its back to the water, stood a small temple to the god of the harvest, Inari. Wild cats lived on that water margin, feeding on rats and garbage. I liked the cats very much, and their stealthy ways.

Beyond the alley were shops and stalls. You could buy anything: a bolt of indigo cotton, wooden bowls, cutting tools of every size and shape, mulberry paper, straw sandals. Raw voices were always hawking, shouting to make way, or crying down abuse on animals. Everything moved by—people and barrows and horses and mules and more people.

The High City loomed over us. On top of the hill the castle stood, in a huge empty space. People said its dungeon used to be higher than the distant peak of Mount Fuji, three days’ walk away. But it burned down in a fire, and most of the Low City with it. That happened before I was born, and before my father was born. But we knew the story. Flames ate the bridges and trapped the inhabitants between the canals so they couldn’t escape. On windy nights you could hear their ghosts screaming still.

From the castle, moat water trickled down to join the Sumida River, which ran down to Edo Bay, where the patient fishermen stood on stilts. Beyond the bay was a wide world of water—nothing more. My father said there were other countries and other peoples in a great world beyond. It was hard to believe him.

We were at the starting place: from here, foot roads led to the far points of our country. We had no idea of its shape. Maps were illegal for us. Townsmen were not to know where the limits of the shogun’s power might lie. But we could follow the dark ribbon of the Sumida against its current, northward.

That being the only journey we could make, we often did so. The Sumida was wide and powerful. The water gleamed despite the garbage it swilled away. The banks of the river were worn smooth by constant foot traffic and the loading of boats. Those banks divided the city itself from the water. They were a long strip of playground, a free place somehow agreed upon by the bakufu to belong to us, the disreputables. I would sit in the ferry as it plugged along and watch. Down on those banks I might see anything—fortune-tellers, beggars, children flying kites, women dancing.

THE NORTH SEVEN Stars formed the Great Dipper. My father showed me how to find them in the sky. We looked along the line made by the outside of the bowl. Followed it to see Myoken, the shining eye of all the gods. Myoken was constancy; it was the writers’ star. My father worshipped it.

I remember the night he decided to rename himself. This time his name would honor the North Star: it would be Hokusai.

We will follow it, he said.

We always walked then. I had become too big to ride on my father’s shoulders. As we walked, I could hear the river chug, could hear his feet on the stones and the wailing of cats. But I could not see much. It was late afternoon, winter, and darkness was already on us. Women stood around their outside cooking fires, children tugging their skirts. There was the pounding of a wooden club on barrels, a girl fulling cloth. A rowing song echoed on the water.

We came into light, lamplight from teashops, bookstores, a man with hot coals in an iron pot. On we went, and the city dwindled to marsh and then began to rise again. We came to the Kabuki area. Here were the great theaters with their waving banners, pushing crowds, the thundering drums announcing a play about to begin.

Kabuki is just as wicked as our pictures. But they’ll never shut this place down, muttered my father. They wouldn’t dare.

But the theater was not respectable either. Actors were like us—not officially people. They were restricted to this part of town, in the heart of the city. Still the rich merchants came, and their wives. The poor came too, going without a meal to buy a ticket. Even the noble ladies came, in disguise. They fell in love with actors. I had often heard those stories. Banned, and therefore popular. That was how it worked.

I used to paint here, he grumbled, before you were born. The actors, the wrestlers—I hated it. You have to sit in the audience. You have to be a reporter.

Two of the slender boys who were training to play the parts of women in the Kabuki theater came giggling along.

We listened to their squeaky voices.

"He said he would give us one gold ryo if—"

You didn’t believe him, did you? Don’t be an idiot.

I agreed. One gold ryo was enough money to buy rice for one person for a full year.

The other one started to wail in a high, breaking voice.

"You’re not supposed to cry; you’re an actor. All this is a play."

But I’m hungry. The smaller boy plucked at the other boy’s costly coat sleeve. I watched the first boy hurry him along. The wind was blowing and the lantern was swinging overhead, shedding its gaudy light. I was hungry, too. But I had a father and a home. Boys like that lived in the part of town where children were sold as prostitutes.

I was so tired. It seemed I walked through sleep into wakefulness, from darkness into light. Ahead I saw a street bobbing with lanterns. We had arrived at the Nightless City, the pleasure district. We had walked from poverty into the jolly, gaudy plenitude that turned men from serfs into new, free creatures. Men, not women. Women were always servants.

I heard the drums, the wailing singers, the shrieks of laughter. I stepped more quickly, holding my father’s hand. This was the Yoshiwara, the licensed quarters, where pleasures prohibited elsewhere were magically permitted as long as a tax was paid to the bakufu.

My father was in search of work.

I loved the Yoshiwara. In the Yoshiwara, we townspeople were kings—better than kings if we had a little money. Boat after ferryboat pushed off the docks, the high curved bows and sterns looming over us, the oarsmen with their long poles standing up in the wind and shouting to one another as they steered out into the clear. There was a lot of traffic. Travelers, laborers, bored samurai—all of these flocked northward into the wind as the sun began to set. The men would stay until they were shooed out and the Great Gate locked in the hours before dawn.

In the Yoshiwara, pleasure cost money. Money bought silk and velvet futons and food, music and sake—and women. The women collected the money, but they never kept it. They gave it to brothel owners and housekeepers, drummer boys and caterers. The clients were bled dry, then ejected by the guard. But that would be later, after a long night of pleasure. If we ever came here during the day, we would come face-to-face with these defeated men trudging south. But now it was evening, the best time, and we climbed over the rounded bridge with the seven stars above us and the houses of pleasure laid out in front.

On Nakanocho Boulevard, the main street, paper lanterns cast pools of red light on the wet snow. The noodle shop with its cartoon—Fortify Yourself Before the Deed!—was dark. Cauldrons that had boiled all day, rattling and steaming, now crouched half-seen on the burners. Next door, Waki’s tattoo parlor was also dark, but Waki himself lay on the floor in the rectangle of streetlight under his door curtain. My father stopped only a few steps from his ear.

What are you doing, Waki? He nudged him with his toe.

It was plain that he was sleeping. But my father hated to see anyone idle.

Waki pushed himself up with his elbows. I am concocting a design of dragon’s tail and thunderbolt entwined. It will take hours to do the needlework, but it will be astonishing. He smiled with his eyes closed, envisioning it.

Ah, said Hokusai. He loosened my hand and let me go. He stretched, soaking in the air of this place.

Waki lifted his curtain to let us into his shop. He had a high table there for his customers to lie on. He lit a small oil lamp. His designs were pinned on the walls. My father liked Waki: he was a simple peasant who had come to the city from the southern provinces to make his fortune. He stood beside his curtain, bowed, and gave his spiel automatically when we entered.

I was born to a family of embroiderers in a village in Kyushu. I am good with a needle. I trained on the thick velvet and brocade that sold to warrior families. By contrast, skin is a pitiful fabric.

We nodded as if we had not heard this before.

But for one thing. Waki rolled his shoulders back and then shifted side to side, making eyes at me. The movements of flesh! Such possibilities! You see—I can drape the dragon’s body over the man’s left shoulder and down the arm. He pantomimed. The round muscles over the shoulder blade bulge, and so does the dragon. The sharp bone of the elbow becomes the arrowhead point of the dragon’s tail.

It would take you hours to create this tattoo—but it would be marvelous, agreed my father.

"I’ll give it to the next man who comes in the door who can stand the pain. What should I charge? One ryo in gold?"

That’s one month’s wage for a laborer.

"But he won’t be a laborer. One thousand mon?"

That’s five days’ wages.

Not too much, do you think? For my artistry?

Not too much if they have it.

A man stepped into the doorway behind us. An umbrella was tipped low over his head. Only his thin, wrapped calves and boxlike body were visible; his face was in shadow.

What do you want? said Waki sharply.

The man let the umbrella tip back and stepped into the lamplight.

There was no need to speak. The character for dog was tattooed on the stranger’s forehead. There was only one place he could have got it: in the bakufu jailhouse. It was the mark of a criminal.

Take this off, the stranger rasped. What had they done to him, to his voice?

Waki said he could not. The tattoo would not come off. That’s why they put it there. To mark him forever.

The man came closer. Then make it the color of skin, so it won’t show.

I can’t, Waki said. He was afraid. I felt the fear. I would end up in jail myself.

The criminal cursed and roughly brushed the curtain aside, stepping back out into the street. He turned toward the end, where the low-class brothels were, and ran. We stared after him.

Pity the women who are too poor to refuse his business, said my father.

I noticed he had sympathy for women, especially when they were not in his family.

Waki turned down his lamp. I’m closed anyway, he said. He shooed us out, looking nervously down the street after his fleeing visitor.

Turn your mind back to the fantastic dragon, conjure the scallops you’ll draw for scales, and hope it puts you to sleep, Hokusai said.

Next door, Mitsu hovered over her shop counter. A man in a black traveling cloak stood with his back to us, looking at the goods. Mitsu’s large mouth stretched and twisted. She had thick, dark brows and her eyes had huge black-rimmed bags beneath them—another socket, another brow. My father always said she looked like she wore actors’ makeup; she exaggerated her expressions to go with her moods. She used to be a housekeeper in a brothel, that’s what he said. She knew her business.

What this one would do! Oh! Don’t you want to see? She lowered her eyelids and rolled her pupils skyward. Dildos made of turtle shell winked in a wooden case under her fingers. Elegant dried seahorses lay side by side on velvet. There were also cowrie shells, which I had seen my father use to pour out medicine for my mother when she was about to give birth. And in the very back, a wooden box contained a bear claw, used to stroke the pregnant stomach. For the right customer she would lift the cloth that covered all these. But he was not the right customer. He turned to us, and I could see that he was as poor as we were. He turned away. She pressed her lips together and pushed out her chin: she covered her precious toys. She leveled a look of scorn at his back. She turned the look on us.

What brings you out tonight? With that one? She jerked her chin at me. She hated children. We weren’t good for business.

My father was shabby; he was thin. I was proud of him, and I thought he should be rich. I did not know that being a great artist meant forgoing a thick mattress or a fine meal. I learned it soon enough.

I stood up straight and glared at Mitsu. If she was going to insult him, she would have to deal with me.

Looking to see what’s new, said Hokusai evasively.

New? It’s all new. No one likes old things today. She shrugged, and he nodded: in this, she was right. The public is fickle, she said.

He wore nothing to distinguish himself from the trudging crowds of poor who thronged the streets of Edo. This made him stand out in the Yoshiwara, where everyone was dressed to show off. But he was not to be scorned. He was not a drunkard or a spendthrift. He didn’t go into debt to buy courtesans, starving his children. We starved anyway. He was a window-shopper. That was free.

I made a nice little design of girls catching fireflies, he began. She looked bored. And women caught in the rain on the bridge . . .

Mitsu grunted. That one you could sell to the shop that rents oiled-paper umbrellas. Let them put their sign on it.

He sighed. It’s a thought. I could design umbrellas. Now that the publishers have stopped printing books, since the edict.

"Temporary. It’s only temporary. The bakufu will let up soon. They never pay attention to us for long. She scoured my father’s anxious face and seemed to take a kinder interest. Why don’t you try famous courtesans looking in mirrors? That’s what people want."

He groaned. Everyone does that. Utamaro does that.

She shrugged. Well, then, you have to do it better. Even the wealthiest are difficult to please these days. They don’t think it’s smart anymore to spend all their money in the Yoshiwara. They all want a bargain. She said this with disgust and followed it with a hissing sound. She folded her hands righteously. Yes, my dear fellow, I do believe you have missed our golden days. Business is very difficult, very difficult.

Her jowly face swung side to side.

You’ve got to do something to make yourself stand out, Mitsu was advising my father. I’ll tell you what—

He wouldn’t listen. He never did, to my mother or to anyone. A gust took the lantern, and it cracked against a roof pole, sputtering. The gaudy light swung back and forth, back and forth. We stood, both of us, looking at its red-edged shadow. Then we moved on. In a teahouse some other artists bought us tea. My father wouldn’t take sake. We sat and it was peaceful there, with the movement of hopeful travelers in the street, the occasional stately passage of a fine courtesan, the undercurrent of drums from the brothels, the low murmur of the waitresses. The voices that roared up in sound and then abruptly cut off, as if the singer had fallen down a hole.

It was nothing Mitsu said that helped him; it was walking here, being here. It was the fever of money flowing and the wanting. It was the people my father wanted to make pictures of—not the prostitutes, though he’d done that, or the actors, the famous people. It was the ordinary ones—people who worked with their hands and their bodies, the ugly and misshapen ones, the funny and beleaguered ones. That’s what he wanted. But who wanted to buy those pictures?

4.

The Yakko

WE HAD COME to the Yoshiwara in the late afternoon. It was the third month, and the day of the Lantern Festival parade. We sat on the side of the boulevard waiting for the parade. It hadn’t started, but already people had gathered. Every teahouse on the boulevard had hung a lantern with blue and black patterns under its eaves. The courtesans and their attendants would march in their giant costumes with royal pomp from the brothels to their places of assignation.

My father had his sketchbook. He commanded me to stay right there! Then he forgot about me.

The courtesans came out of the high-class brothels next to the boulevard. There was a man with a great iron spear in front to lead them and then a lantern bearer, although it wasn’t dark yet. They stood with their child attendants in their brilliant kimonos of silk and velvet in colors so deep I thought the seas and the skies had been emptied to make them. There was a cart with more women, their faces painted white, playing samisens. Drummers began pounding their rhythms to speed the heartbeats. Acrobats flipped in a series of circles, like the wheels of an oxcart, from hands to feet, hands to feet, all around the cluster of exotic women.

The first childish girls wore pounds of lustrous clothes and makeup, but they were nothing compared to the top-rank women, who towered on clogs as high as my forearm was long, with hair like wasps’ nests speared with many golden sticks. The top courtesan, the oiran, was stupendous. Everyone gasped to see her. She paced with infinite slowness, balancing on one foot most of the time, while a man walked behind her holding an umbrella over her head. Then more followers—the housekeeper, the teahouse workers, and then another courtesan in her enormous shoes and her enormous hairdo.

I ran along beside them. I quickly caught up because of their special step, the figure eight, which meant they had to swing each foot in two circles and then out behind in a jaunty kick before planting it. It made them very slow. Some of the courtesans were very fresh and new. I tried my best to catch their eyes, but I could not. I was not certain they were human. The children in their entourage pushed each other and wailed. They were not allowed to look at anyone. I ran back to my father. It wasn’t the performers he was drawing, of course. It was the watchers.

Among the watchers, and the subject of my father’s brush, was a blind man with his cane.

He was bald; he had shaved himself as a sign of his blindness. This was the custom. And he was massive. His head was like a large egg tipped back on the top of his neck. The oval of his chin jutted forward and the larger oval of his crown slid backward. His eyebrows were black, thick, and short, and they curled over his squinting eyes like sleeping dogs. His prominent ears were immensely complicated whirls of flesh. On

Reviews for The Printmaker's Daughter

[roses7184_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pulling from history, and adding it's own spin, The Printmaker's Daughter tells the story of Ei Katsushika, the third daughter of Hokusai Katsushika. For those of you who may be fans of Japanese art, or of their rich history, this name will ring a bell. Hokusai was a famous artist at the end of an era. A man who openly and vibrantly put his feelings down into his paintings. Faced with censorship and hardship, Hokusai was a man shrouded in much mystery. The Printmaker's Daughter takes what is known to be fact, and mixes it gorgeously with a fictional story.

In the beginning, Ei is shown as the favorite of her father. She is afforded a freedom that most women didn't have at this time. Galavanting around town, meeting people from all different walks of life, and even being allowed to attend places that children weren't technically allowed to go. Ei's ability to slip unnoticed into these places allows the reader to get a through glimpse at what life was like for the common people during this time. I thought it was truly brilliant how much Ei is allowed to experience, and therefore how much the reader is as well.

As Ei gets older, Katherine Govier really shows the truth behind this young girl's life. The reader follows as Ei tries to make a place in the world for herself. Constantly belittled by her father and told she is nothing, it is her strength that really drew me in. Until her dying breath, she faced the world head on and did what she felt was right for her. In fact, all the characters in this story are strong and wonderfully written. The first person narrative is beautifully done, and it is very easy to become immersed in this story.

The Printmaker's Daughter is hauntingly beautiful and well written. The vivid characters bring the story to life, and really were what kept me reading on. If I had one complaint, it would be that there were times when Ei's story became a little heavy in the historical descriptions. However, considering the topic, it makes perfect sense. I'm simply not a reader who often delves into Historical Fiction, so it was a different read for me. The discussion at the end of the book ties everything together, and definitely answered all the questions I had left upon finishing this intriguing book.

If you are a reader who enjoys historical fiction, this is a book that you will fall in love with. I definitely recommend Katherine Govier's The Printmaker's Daughter and look forward to more from this author.

[rdra1962 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nowhere near as good as Three Views of Crystal Water, this is the story of the daughter of a renowned Japanese artist. She is an artist in her own right and to this day there are many questions about which existing works are hers and which are her father's. An interesting view of life in Japan under the rule of the Shoguns.

[mbmackay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This turned out to be a highly enjoyable book - after a rocky start.First, the start: to give the courtesan's their own patois, the author chooses to use some form of Californian Valley Girl slang. It is, like, a disaster. There is also the clunky use of the local storyteller (part town crier, part tabloid scandal monger) to fill in the background on one of the important characters, Shino. But, the book flows from there. The author tells the story sparingly, with occasional vignettes in a roughly chronological sequence. The characterisation of the key players is well done and they rise from the page.Interestingly for a book about two famous artists, there is only very limited analysis of the actual art works. What detail that is given is mostly descriptive, and not detailed at that. Instead, the book is about relationships, set in the background of the place and time - Japan in the era leading up to the time of the forced "opening" in 1867. Now I was quite happy with this balance, but I wonder of others might prefer more artistic criticism.The subsidiary issue discussed in the book is the role of gender in Japan in the 19th century. The author manages to deal explicitly with the injustices without turning the book into a undergraduate gender studies assignment.Great book. Read Jan 2016

[pussreboots · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Govier is set in 19th century Edo. Oei narrates her story of being a young woman working with her father, a print maker.Edo is the former name of Tokyo. It was the seat of power from 1603 to 1868 and grew to be a thriving metropolis. It was a vibrant, bustling, crowded place but most of that excitement is missing from this novel.Instead, Oei's narrative is halting and full of stuff to prove to us western readers that yes, she is in fact, a Japanese lady from late 19th century Edo. So she waxes on and on over details that are of exotic interest to westerns: geisa, kimono, tabi, okobo, etc. I just can't imagine Oei actually being that fascinated by "exotic" Japan as she's portrayed. In the 50 or so pages I suffered through, there is no chance for Oei to just live in Edo and have her life's up and downs. No, she's there as a tour guide for some weird western preconceived notion of what Edo was like. The extremely silly and anachronistic anime, Oh Edo Rocket! is a better, more realistic presentation of life in Edo even with the entire moon alien plot!

[a_reader_of_fictions · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Drawn in by the pretty cover and the lure of Japan, I had little idea what to expect of this novel. Although the title suggests that the tale would be all about the relationship of a father and daughter, I did not really suspect that would be almost the entirety of what it was about. There is little romance. Mostly, this is a story of art and the family ties between these two.

Actually, given the romance there was, I am glad there was not more. The men Oei took up with were rather creepy, especially the first, a man of her father's years (and he was not young when she was born) seduced her when she was only fifteen. Not strange for that time period, but that does not make it any more okay to me now.

The sections that really came alive were those about the making of the art. The loving discussion of the colors and the lines were touching, even for one, like me, who does not have an artistic bone in her body when it comes to painting, drawing, etc. Oei is a very strong woman, although not when confronted with her father, and she has more skill than most artists, even perhaps her lauded father.

In library school, we discussed at one point the legitimacy of someone from outside a culture trying to write a book about that culture. I don't really know how I feel about that, but I think Govier has likely done a fantastic job. Her mass of research is evident from her Afterword, which goes into detail on why she wrote the novel and the historical basis for her suppositions.

I never really got swept away by this. Despite Oei's strength, I had trouble relating to her and her decisions. There are certainly good things here, but this was not a perfect choice for me.

[msjessie · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is less a review, even a short one, than an exercise to vanquish the guilt I have for not being able to finish this novel. I rarely, rarely give in and DNF a historical novel: my curiousity to see how things work out and my high threshold for frippery description usually overpowers my good sense. By all means, I wanted to love and should have loved this journey into 1800s Edo Japan, but this was most definitely not the novel I thought I was getting. Some readers will be enchanted by Govier's visually striking version of the isolationist country, but I wasn't diverted or engrossed by Oei and the Old Man's journey through the years of her life. I kept waiting for something, anything, to happen in those hard-fought 300 pages of reading but.... nothing of note did and I had to throw in the towel.My first major complaint about The Printmaker's Daughter and one that persisted for most of the pages I managed to conclude: the accent/speech patterns used for the courteans of the Corner Tamaya. A confusing overuse of the letter 'z' for pluralization or to show ownership was the first problem I caught on to ("She'z so, like, stiff. She'z like a lady!") but it was sadly also far from the last. Why do these 1800's whores speak like 1990's California valleygirls? Phrases and words like "pulleeez" "chi-yuld" and "it'z so noi-zy!" is not how women of the time expressed themselves so it's a jarring speech pattern for the author to have them use - and somewhat condescending as well. Why does the word "like" pop up every three words in the conversation of the courtesans? Given that young Oei spends quite a chunk of the beginning of the novel among the bordellos with her father, it's a reoccuring and distracting issue. Oei herself isn't too bad of a protagonist, though she's not fully fleshed out by the time I closed the cover for the final time. I actually really enjoyed reading about the complicated but loving relationship between Oei and her famous father; she clearly values his opinion and work more than her own life. Even the title of the novel reinforces how clearly Oei defines herself by the terms of her father. Govier seems to have largely based her Hokusai on the real man, easily enfolding actual facts about the main into the narrative easily and often. I liked the characters, but I didn't closely identif with any, root for any or hate any. They were just mostly there...doing nothing for 300 pages. The ultra-weird narrative shifts, from two hundred fifty pages of first-person perspective to a third-person view and back again to first is just clunky and weird. A more streamlined transition between views would help the whiplash of flipping back and forth so much. This was just not for me, though I can easily see others overlooking what I could not and enjoying this far more/ actually completing the entire 500-page length. I just don't want to muscle through a novel only to write a tepid review after - by no means is this even close to the worst I have read this year. I just lacked the desire to pursue another 200 pages of anachronistic accents and weird POV shifts with nothing happening in between to break up the monotony.

[clairemw · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Takes you away to a magical place which in the end, you never want to leave. The premise: wonderful 19th century Japannese artist Hogusai has a brilliant daughter to whom he owes his success.

[bookishdame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"The Printmaker's Daughter" is a book of considerable consternation. While the overall story of artists Hokusai and his daughter, Oei, is complex and absorbing, it falls short somehow in this translation to paper.As a subject of art history, theirs is a biographical tale that is fascinating. Finding out that an example of Oei's work is at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts especially captured my attention! ( I'm making tracks to see it when I go home to visit my children and grands.) It's also interesting to note via Ms Govier's biographical notes at the end of the book, that an American collector purchased many of the prints and had them put in a museum; then, by his will decreed that they could never be loaned: "the collection had been in storage for 100 years."In this book, what seems to have happened in Ms Govier's elaboration in novel form is that she took the bones of the historical knowledge of Hukosai and Oei, and tried to reconstruct a story around those details. Often that's a good place to start; however, what resulted was a "term paperish" book that left out the essence of the people and the art you'd hope to find in a novel. What do I mean by this? The characters are relayed to us as they are in their art history biographies, but there is no furtherance of that outline into a sense of fleshed out characters. There are no real feelings engendered, no emotion truly felt and shown by way of the characterizations. None of the characters moved me at all. I felt a strict distance from them throughout this novel, despite the fact that there were several opportunities that could have been employed to enlist sympathy, empathy, and all sorts of identification in pain and love. There is a definite void of emotion in these very flat characters. It was as if I was getting a view of complete strangers and it stayed that way until the end with no insight into their real thoughts and feelings. Even the lovely and abused courtesan that Hokusai loved was left a blank slate of her true thoughts and agonies. And, what's more, I missed finer details of the landscape, temple convent and buildings! Extremely frustrating.Now, how can this be true in contrast? I liked the story as it played out, and I believe that those who love novels of this oriental flavor will enjoy it for that reason. I enjoyed the fantasy of how Oei may have looked and acted with the courtesans and her father, and how she may have become the great artist many think she actually was. But I had to skim (which is antithetical to my reading spirit!) through long parts to get to that liking. I had to give up a lot of what I wanted and expected.The book was too long and left too much out. That's a strange one... In terms of the descriptions of making art; painting on silk and printmaking in particular, we are completely left in the dark. I wanted to know the process, the artist's angst, the finding and connection with colors, the choices of engravers and printers and something about them, the type of paper used, etc. I wanted to know their reactions when the engraving didn't work out! There was so little about the artists' spirits and the compulsion to make art; what first inspired him and her. So much substance could have been included, but wasn't.I was disappointed with a novel that had such promise in facts available. This is a story that could have had such an impact today not only with regard to women in general, but also with regard to the recognition of women artists; and women artists in Japan, in particular. So much of the "red light district" of Koshiwara could have been described in exciting, lush detail; but wasn't. I was frustrated with that and with what was lost in the opportunity to capture my imagination with stories and better descriptions of the courtesans. They were shadow images...stick figures.This book, then, is a mixed bag. I couldn't stop reading it because I wanted to know about the artists and of their lives and culture. And, yet, I felt disappointed that more wasn't made of Govier's author's license, her descriptive abilities and characterizations. On one hand I felt as if I were reading a bad art history thesis; and on the other, a novel that left me wanting more.I do thank Ms Govier for adding the biographical section at the end of her book. Her notes on Hokusai being called the "Dickens of Japan," and that so many artists were inspired by his work; such as, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Toulousse-Lautrec, and Mary Cassat were of great interest and complemented her book. For musicians, I think it was good of her to note that Debussy was inspired to write "La Mer" by one of Hokusai's prints.I also loved finding out that Oei's disappearance and death...place and time are an unsolved mystery. I thought Ms Govier's handling of that portion of her novel was excellent!So, in conclusion, I leave the ultimate decision about this book to those of you, as I've said, who love novels of eastern cultures. Japan is a wonderful place to read about, with a culture that invites love and curiosity. You will find your itch for that scratched with "The Printmaker's Daughter." As for the rest, it's for you to decide whether it matters or not to you!

[bookdivasreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nineteenth century Japan is an era most equate with the end of an era. Japan saw the end of the shogun and samurai as it became open to the West. Although it was the end of many cultural practices and traditions, many beautiful artisans were introduced to the West. One such artist was Hokusai. The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Gouvier is a fictional account of the lives of Hokusai and his daughter Ei.Ei Katsushika was the third daughter of Hokusai Katsushika. Ei appears to the much-loved daughter of Hokusai at the beginning of this story. Her father takes her with him around town and affords her freedom that her other sisters never knew. She befriends other artists, poets and even prostitutes in the town of Edo. As she ages, she becomes an indispensable assistant to her father, helping mix paint colors, even working on some of his pictures. In many respects Ei is a free woman in an era when women were never afforded much freedom. She marries, divorces, takes lovers, and assists her father in his work while never learning any of the so-called womanly arts of cooking, making tea, sewing, or even cleaning. Ms. Gouvier paints a picture of Ei that is often tragic yet filled with wonder. Although Ei has freedom that many Japanese women never experienced during this time period, she remains tied to her father. She puts up with his verbal abuse and has her art demeaned and belittled. As her father ages and becomes either incapable or unwilling to paint, Ei takes over and continues his school and even paints many pictures that are ultimately attributed to Hokusai (some intentionally). Although Hokusai is the best-known print maker of his time, he and Ei lived in virtual poverty much of their lives. Ei's life seemed to come to an abrupt stop when Hokusai finally died. It isn't until she reunites with a former prostitute turned nun - Shino, that she learns to placate society and her family while continuing to do what she wants until her death.The Printmaker's Daughter is at times hauntingly beautiful in bringing the lives of Ei, Shino and Hokusai to life. There were also times the story seemed sluggish, as a result I found myself having to put the book down because my attention kept wavering as I tried to read. It wasn't until the latter portion of Ei's life is portrayed after Hokusai's death that the story truly became interesting for me. Don't get me wrong, The Printmaker's Daughter is a beautiful fictional account of Ei and Hokusai. This is a well-written and well-researched book with well-developed characters and settings. Sadly I found the research discussion at the end of the book more captivating than most of the fictional story.

[greatimaginations · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Going into reading this book I knew absolutely nothing about Katsushika Hokusai. To be honest, I didn't even know this was actually based on a true story. It's loosely based, but really only because there is not a lot of information out there about Hokusai's life, just his work. The author had to take certain liberties with the character's personalities, but for the most part, these were real people that once lived in a very difficult time. Katherine spent five years researching and writing this novel. Five years of interviewing, traveling to Japan, researching, visiting museums and colleges, talking to experts, scholars and anyone else that could possibly help write the story of this man and his mystery daughter, Oi. I knew nothing about any of this until I started reading. But then I fell in love with the story and wanted to know more (a lot more!), so I did some research of my own. I studied Hokusai and his work, I read up on him and the time that he lived, I learned as much as I could about the courtesans of the Yoshiwara and painting woodblock prints. All this was, and still is, new to me. But I was mesmerized. Enchanted, really. I could talk about this forever. And really, if you have ANY questions to ask me about this book, feel free, because I loved it. Adored it. I don't want to compare it to Memoirs of a Geisha, because the books cover two completely different topics, but it's hard not to for me, because Memoirs is at this point probably my favorite book. Ever. But I think The Printmaker's Daughter may surpass that for me. If not surpass, it is equal. I think this story was a bit more real in its authenticity. The voice of Oi felt extremely real to me. It was almost as if a Japanese girl was really telling the story. It felt extremely authentic. And Oi had personality. I didn't really feel that way about Memoirs. While I really loved the story, it was because of the characters that I was enchanted. But the protagonist, Sayuri, didn't have much of a personality. Not so with this book. And the settings felt so incredibly real. This was a book to get lost in. A book to take your time with. I just wanted to savor every word and let the story unfold slowly. And I did. It was magical. Parts of it were depressing, sure, because living in that time for women was not easy. It felt very oppressive for Oi. And also the courtesans. And it was. But through it all, Oi remained strong and steadfast. As impossible and selfish as her father was, she remained loyal and devoted to him until the day he died. Which by the way, was a very long time to live. He lived to the ripe old ancient age of 89. In 1849 when he died, living that long was extremely rare. Oi lived under his thumb, and fame, for his entire life. How oppressive. Finally, she is starting to gain recognition. People are actually trying to find out the truth. Which paintings of her father's was she actually responsible for? From what I have seen, she is a little more talented than he is. Her usage of colors is just outstanding. And in my opinion, you can clearly tell her work from his. In closing, this was a brilliant cultural read. I could write for endless hours about how epic I found this book to be. And I learned so much while reading. It was basically my ultimate reading experience. I love reading cultural fiction. Specifically about Asia, but as long as I am learning, I could care less. I will be following Katherine Govier's career. I think she is an amazing writer and this book deserves to be read by the masses. I am SO, so glad I read it. And of course I will be buying a copy for keeps.

[terriko_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The tale of the daughter of a great artist... or is she perhaps the great artist herself? A very tonal piece, with a lot of thought about Japanese culture of the time. Feels like many smaller stories of her life, at times. I really enjoyed this one despite it being so different from my usual favourites.

[jbrubacher_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The daughter of the great painter Hokusai tells about his life, and her life, and about being a great painter herself, and more than just Hokusai's daughter. This is beautifully written, with a strong voice that is easy to read, and very pleasing to read. Oei grows from a child to an old woman with every part of life in between well described. Sometimes she seems too concerned with the men in her life, but this is because it was the life she was forced to have in the time she was living. And the traditions she broke are incredible for that time.Oei is a heroine in a very real way. She is a demonstration of a great woman and a great artist--that is obvious even without seeing her work, because of her determination. It took me a very long time to read this because it is an autobiography of sorts, it never rushes and the pace is even. But I enjoyed every chapter. It has a wonderful smoothness and I'll happily look into whatever else the author writes.

[scrabblenut · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ghost Brush is a wonderfully imagined story of the lives of a real Japanese artist, Hokusai, and his perhaps even more talented daughter, Oe. However, because she was a woman, her work could not be recognized in her own right. The book is well-researched, and brings that chapter of Japanese history to life with the sights and smells and beauty and squalor. Particulary interesting is Oe's friendship with the courtesan Shino, and also her encounter with a Dutch doctor living on the man-made island where the Dutch were allowed to live in isolation. The story follows Oe's life from beginning to end, especially her relationship with her famous and eccentric artist father, who taught her his skills and helped her develop her own. We are privy to Oe's thoughts on Japanese society and the role of women in it at that time. A memorable and fascinating read - highly recommended.