After the Bloom [Paperback]

A daughters search for her mother reveals her familys past in a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War.

Lily Takemitsu goes missing from her home in Toronto one luminous summer morning in the mid-1980s. Her daughter, Rita, knows her mother has a history of dissociation and memory problems, which have led her to wander off before. But never has she stayed away so long. Unconvinced the police are taking the case seriously, Rita begins to carry out her own investigation. In the course of searching for her mom, she is forced to confront a labyrinth of secrets surrounding the familys internment at a camp in the California desert during the Second World War, their postwar immigration to Toronto, and the father she has never known.

Epic in scope, intimate in style,After the Bloomblurs between the present and the ever-present past, beautifully depicting one familys struggle to face the darker side of its history and find some form of redemption.A deep and beautiful story & Poetically told and laced with Japanese folklore, the novel takes cues from a more mythical narrative, parables abounding in its fiction but always with a point.After the Bloomoffers characters of exacting specificity, ones who destroy pat generalizations and reveal the particular people, families, and faces that were stereotyped, amassed, depersonalized, and sometimes destroyed by this oft-overlooked moment in history.Leslie Shimotakahara uses bold strokes of unflinching and honest prose to paint a landscape of beauty and brutality in her compelling debut novelAfter the Bloomas she tells one womans journey and a daughters desire for truth. Like evocative cherry blossoms, Shimotakaharas powerful words float from page to page, enticing the reader to take courageous steps through the tragedy and oppression of an internment camp. With sharp insight and grace, she has created a narrative full of emotional impact and vivid characters.After tl#K