This is a lovely tale slowly told so you can savor. Not so you can savor the horrors of murder, nor the horrors of rape, not even the horrors of institutional rape and murder, war. I think it's so you can savor everything you can't get out of your head. If that includes horrors you yourself have perpetrated then it does. In this story we savor a point of view that feels singularly Japanese. I kept being reminded of Shinto, especially in the view inside the square. In this story we have an antiterrorist survivor of the Japanese work camp the Golden Lily looking to honor her sister who died in the camp. She seeks the former gardener to the Japanese emperor who lives in Malaysia now. He can help her create the garden her sister always dreamed of aloud to while away the time in the camp.
Review of The Garden of Evening Mists
