Fault Lines

July 26, 2021
In Itami’s thoughtful debut, an affluent and disaffected Tokyo housewife and mother has an affair and reflects on her life choices. At 16, Mizuki travels from her rural Japanese province to New York City to spend a year in an American high school, where she learns to be assertive and pursues an interest in music. Back in Japan, she struggles in school, raging against her “stupid, archaic system of letters,” and returns to New York, where she spends another three years and sings in a band. She continues her rebellious music career back in Tokyo, until she despairs from a lack of financial security and marries Tatsuya. After a decade of a loving marriage and two children, Tatsuya starts coming home cranky and distracted after long hours at work. He loves their two young children, but doesn’t help with their upbringing; he treats Mizuki with disdain. Mizuki then becomes fast friends with charming restaurateur Teramoto Kiyoshi, with whom she’s able to share her Americanized perspective. She initially resists her attraction to him, but their friendship soon blossoms into a romance. 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. Itami’s brave, frank portrayal of Japan’s societal expectations of women is worth a look. Agent: Kirsty McLachlan, Morgan Green Creatives.

August 1, 2021
Mizuki is the quintessential Japanese housewife with the ideal life. Her husband receives regular promotions, they have two beautiful children, and they live in a comfortable high-rise apartment in the city. Though outwardly she meets the cultural standard for motherhood, inside she struggles with the desire for freedom. Her brief time in New York as a single woman, first as a student and then as a singer, was her only experience away from her cultural expectations. When she meets Kiyoshi during a night out with her friends, he gives her the ticket to autonomy. As their relationship grows, Mizuki takes part in the vibrant city life and feels more like an individual rather than an invisible housewife. Soon, she begins to lead two starkly different lifestyles, and when her adulterous affair begins to clash with her sense of duty, she is forced to reassess her marriage and make a critical decision. Through clever narration and humorously witty prose, Itami explores the struggle between duty and desire, and Western and Eastern cultures, in her brilliant debut.

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Starred review from December 3, 2021

DEBUT Mizuki should be happy with her industrious husband, two adorable children, and enviable Tokyo apartment, but in the first pages of this fresh and surprising novel she describes how close she came to flinging herself off their 32nd-floor balcony. Maybe it's because her husband, once good-natured and curious, is now always work-stressed and barely communicative, even stepping over her as if she were a dog while she kneels on the floor doing laundry and pleading for some help. Mizuki has lived and studied in New York and used to be a lounge singer, so she's had some aspirations. But she traded what she saw as a going-nowhere job for marriage and now works as a cultural instructor for expats when she's not striving to be the perfect Japanese mother--a role she keeps muddling even as the author delivers a brilliantly exact description of what it's like to have children. On an outing with friends, Mizuki meets charming restaurateur Kiyoshi, which opens her to a different way of being. VERDICT Introspective Mizuki takes readers on a deep dive into what's really important in life. In a voice that's sometimes thoughtful, sometimes entertainingly sardonic, and always heartfelt, Itami delivers some unexpected conclusions.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

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