The Japanese Lover

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The Japanese Lover

Written by: Isabel Allende

Narrated by: Joanna Gleason

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From New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende, a “poignant, powerful” (Boston Globe) love story and multigenerational epic that stretches from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during World War II.

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener.

Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family—like thousands of other Japanese Americans—are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world.

Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco’s charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover is written with the same keen understanding of her characters that Isabel Allende has been known for since her landmark first novel The House of the Spirits. The Japanese Lover is a “multi-generational epic of fate, war, and enduring love” (Harper’s Bazaar).

Isabel AllendeJoanna GleasonSimon & Schuster Audio

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Romance

Fiction

San Francisco

Japanese Language

Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Fiction San Francisco Japanese Language

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It has multiple storylines and is not linear, but I was so swept up in Alma's story I stayed up until 2am to finish it.

I would have liked more fleshing out of the characters, Ichi was always too ghost like. Irina's difficult backstory almost derailed the entire book - it was one subplot too much.

The narrator was good but mispronounced some common words and also was hit and miss on European names.