Barbara's Reviews > The Buddha in the Attic

It's safe to say that no one, absolutely no one, writes like Julie Otsuka. Although all three of her books [When the Emperor Was Divine, The Buddha in the Attic, and The Swimmers] touch on similar themes in many respects, they also branch out in very different directions, leaving readers to make what they will of what they have just experienced. This author masterfully uses carefully-chosen words, simple sentences, and repetitive lines to plumb the emotional depths and experiences of the Japanese women who traveled to San Francisco in search of new lives. Dubbed "picture brides" because they and their husbands-to-be exchanged photographs that often were deceptive as to what the future would hold. Their stories begin on board the ship that was sailing to the West Coast and then continue throughout seven different sections as they learn to deal with their lot, figure out how to get along with whites, work harder than they ever imagined, often in fields alongside their husbands, and then watch as their stable lives crumble around them when they are labeled as traitors and sent to internment camps, effectively disappearing from the thoughts and concerns of their former neighbors. Although the author includes the names of various women in each section of the book, she chooses not to follow one or two of the women, instead, relying on generalizations at certain points and specifications at others. This decision might be off putting to some readers since it runs the risk of keeping readers emotionally removed from the story since there isn't one person on whom to focus. But for me, it had the opposite effect, making me realize just how widespread this ill treatment was. Even for those brides whose marriages seemed to promise happy endings, there was no such thing. The compression of so many individual experiences somehow works very well here.