Jackie Copleton

"First published in Great Britain by Hutchinson, a division of The Random House Group Ltd, 2015."

A Novel

A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

When a badly scarred man knocks on the door of Amaterasu Takahashi's retirement home and says that he is her grandson, she doesn't believe him. She knows her grandson, and her daughter, died the day the Americans dropped the atomic bomb; she searched the ruined city for weeks. Amaterasu has buried the memories of that day and the years leading up to it. Supressing her feelings was something she became an expert at during the long sake-pouring nights she worked in a hostess bar. But why does she hold the man her daughter loved in such contempt? And if you've become adept at lying, can you still recognise when someone is telling the truth?

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016 A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK 'Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Piano Teacher, in the best way.' InStyle Amaterasu Takahashi has spent her life grieving for her daughter Yuko and grandson Hideo, who were victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. Now a widow living in America, she believes that one man was responsible for her loss; a local doctor who caused an irreparable rift between mother and daughter. When a man claiming to be Hideo arrives on her doorstep, she is forced to revisit the past; the hurt and humiliation of her early life, the intoxication of a first romance and the realisation that if she had loved her daughter in a different way, she might still be alive today.

The compelling Richard and Judy Summer Book Club winner

Lorsque par un froid matin d'hiver, un homme défiguré frappe à la porte d'Amaterasu Takahashi et lui annonce qu'il est son petit-fils, elle ne peut le croire... Tout le passé de la vieille dame pénètre à sa suite. Celui d'avant l'Amérique. Celui d'avant ce 9 août 1945, à Nagasaki, où le feu du ciel lui prit sa fille, son petit-fils - cherchés sans répit dans les ruines, et jamais retrouvés. Quarante ans plus tard, l'inconnu au visage brûlé ravive les plaies qu'elle a tant voulu oublier. La culpabilité. Le mensonge. Les secrets. Qu'a-t-il à lui dire ? Qu'a-t-elle encore à lui offrir ?

La voix des vagues

In the tradition of Memoirs of a Geisha and The Piano Teacher, a heart-wrenching debut novel of family, forgiveness, and the exquisite pain of love When Amaterasu Takahashi opens the door of her Philadelphia home to a badly scarred man claiming to be her grandson, she doesn’t believe him. Her grandson and her daughter, Yuko, perished nearly forty years ago during the bombing of Nagasaki. But the man carries with him a collection of sealed private letters that open a Pandora’s Box of family secrets Ama had sworn to leave behind when she fled Japan. She is forced to confront her memories of the years before the war: of the daughter she tried too hard to protect and the love affair that would drive them apart, and even further back, to the long, sake-pouring nights at a hostess bar where Ama first learned that a soft heart was a dangerous thing. Will Ama allow herself to believe in a miracle?

Jackie Copleton

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