Namako: Sea CucumberPosted in Asian Diaspora, Books, Media Archive, Novels on 2013-02-17 17:52Z by Steven |
Coffee House Press
September 1998
256 pages
Paperback ISBN-10: 1566890756; ISBN-13: 978-1566890755
“McFerrin’s first novel paints a portrait of a truly multicultural family—a Scottish father, a half-British and half-Japanese mother, and four children… McFerrin’s writing is thoughtful and smooth as she captures ever-changing images of the world around Ellen and her family, successfully filtering those images through the eyes of her youthful characters”-Library Journal. McFerrin writes: “I came at last to namako, a word that in the Japanese combination of characters means both ‘sea cucumber’ and ‘raw child,’ a symbol for the simplicity and vulnerability that I feel is at the root of the Japanese and perhaps all psyches.” The end result is, according to Publishers Weekly, “a vivid, often humorous novel” that “offers a winning young heroine, a complex family and memorable vignettes of a year spent betwixt and between.”