Fault Lines: Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa First Novel Award

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I happened to be in close proximity to one after my sister wanted to go out one night, so we randomly decided to walk in and just take a look around. As happens in marriage sometimes, and exacerbated by Tatsuya’s high stress, time intensive position and her frustrations as a wife and mother, they’ve grown more and more distant. Set in Tokyo, Emily Itami’s highly readable debut uses infidelity to consider motherhood, cultural pressure and the end of youth. Mitzuki, the protagonist of Emily Itami’s brilliant debut novel Fault Lines, finds herself not only submerged in a world of expectation and comparison, but is also trying to face the cultural expectations that are placed on Mitzuki as a Japanese housewife. If I tell you that at the beginning of the story that she botches an attempt to throw herself off her balcony, it is easy to understand that something is very wrong in her world.

But in this wise and moving book, Karl Pillemer combines academic rigor and practical advice to show us how to move toward reconciliation. The book was more about Mizuki and her thought process regarding her entire life and very little about her affair with Kiyoshi, which was really more of an emotional affair than anything. While a somewhat pat ending feels unworthy of the novel’s provocative premise, Itami makes palpable Mizuki’s loneliness and her need to feel seen. Tatsu, her husband, doesn’t seem as if he even cares enough to be upset at this state of their stale marriage, which only leads to more resentment for Mizuki.Meanwhile, Mizuki cannot keep up with the expectations of Japanese mothers, the perfection expected is what she compares to a cult.

I didn't fault her for having an affair during that arid time in her life when everyone seemed to be dumping on her.

If you need more of a plot driven story, this doesn't really "go anywhere", its more about the housewife. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook).

Honestly I way liked more then half of this book when it focused on the dynamic of Merritt, her busy husband issues and her hanging out with her sister and daughter but then T.We are quickly brought into her past; the part about her study abroad in the United States in New York (instantly noticed the dynamic though of her being put into a rich white family, that was pretty interesting to look at for me), how she learned to live outside of the more strict structure of Japanese society. Mizuki, Itami’s protagonist, lives in Tokyo with her husband, Tatsuya, and their two children, daughter Eri and son Aki. It meant that a whole new world of spontaneity and opportunity opened up to her, which she loved being part of and presented her with numerous opportunities to pursue a completely different life as a singer. How about page 321 when Merritt is getting ready to go back home and her sister is going to clean up the lodge she stayed in she says "Maybe I should hide my dirty underwear where he'll never find it. When she sought to find that basic human connection with Kiyoshi, I couldn't help but cheer for her.