Almost Japanese

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

From the ages of 14 to 18, Emma’s chief preoccupation was her infatuation with Akira Tsutsuma, a Japanese symphony conductor. Her infatuation began when she first saw him conduct an orchestra and blossomed when he bought the house next door. She visits him, attends all his concerts, drives home from concerts with him, collects his programmes, used glasses, cigarette butts, etc. In short, she is besotted. Since the novel is first-person narrative, we do not hear Akira’s thoughts on the relationship, but he seems to appreciate Emma’s company and adulation and never takes advantage of her sexually. Her parents, though irritated and eager to divert her attention, seem to favour laissez-faire child-rearing techniques, so Emma has free rein. Akira moves to Berlin and Emma is devastated. She cuts off all her hair. After several years working in a Toronto Japanese grocery, Emma meets Boris, who “remakes” her and sends her to Japan to shake off the lingering Akira-Japanese infatuation.

Sheard writes beautifully: she knows how to use words to create lasting impressions and pictures, how to weave threads of a story for maximum interest, how to use different structures without alienating her reader. Emma is alive under Sheard’s pen. The novel begins with sensory impressions of youth: walking to nursery school, the smell of arrowroot cookies. These are successfully conveyed to the reader with brief vignettes under headings “skin,” “ears,” “vocal cords,” etc. The emotions and thoughts and experiences of Emma are just those one remembers and/or expects of a young teenage girl. Sheard has grasped the age well. In places Emma’s diary, or “log” as she calls it, continues the story as she records Akira’s every observed activity. Much of the relationship is funny to the observer: Emma is 3 ½ inches taller than Akira by the time she is 16; after he moves she gets a job in the Japanese grocery where he bought his food. A Japanese essence pervades the novel but never intrudes. It is not about a school girl’s acquiring Japanese culture, but about her one-sided romance with an idol. It is a story beautifully told by a talented author.