Karin Tanabe

A while ago I read a novel intended to be a tribute to motherhood, it was a decent enough book, but this one is better. To be certain, this novel has Russian spies and FBI agents, but really, it's the story of a marriage and motherhood and the struggles entailed. The experiences of Rina Edgworth, a highly educated UN translator who leaves her work to raise her two young boys and struggles to find being a mother as fulfilling as her work ensuring world peace is authentic and real (and exactly show more how I've always suspected motherhood was). When she's presented with the opportunity to assist the FBI in hunting down a Soviet spy ring, Rina seizes the chance and slowly begins to change her life for the better. I loved this story about a woman re-establishing her own identity and I appreciated the complex and gritty female characters, which often feature in Karin Tanabe's novels. show less

Great topic. Disappointing book.

The Gilded Years brings us a fascinating subject: Anita Hemmings, daughter of a mulatto janitor in Boston, graduated from the exclusive female-only Vassar college in 1897, while passing as white. Cum laude student, proficient in seven languages, a coveted soprano, popular and class beauty, she successfully hid her secret until her roommate broke her story near graduation. She was allowed to graduate, but her story and her beautiful photo kept the interest of show more news media for months.

Fascinating so far, isn't it? Yes. The problem is, the book is not about Anita. Ninety percent of the story is about Lottie Taylor, Anita's super-rich, spoiled yet charming roommate, her rebellious-yet-endearing chenanigans, her clothes, billionaire mansion, gilded New York life and charmed social life. There is gossip, clothes, a love triangle, romantic intrigue. While Anita is occasionally troubled by subjects of race, this is just a minor distraction in this young-adult romance novel.

This still might be fine, since there is plenty of interesting material of the social life of the day. Unfortunately the writing is middle-grade at best. The dialogue is trivial and repetitive, the characters are flat, the situations mundane. Anita's occasional confrontation with her secret is awkward and inauthentic, so is most of the dialogue. There are anachronisms (such as the words genetics and carbon monoxide in conversation), full names and academic exposition in dialogue. The eighth-grade writing is the same for all interactions, which is too mundane to be used by high society and too academic for poor people.

Unfortunately, the wasting of the subject does not stop here. Granted, it is tough to measure up when one is reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X at the same time, because it throws in sharp relief the biggest fault of the book: Karin Tanabe is half-white, half-Asian, and does not have the foggiest idea about the African-American experience. She is a Vassar graduate and is primarily interested in Vassar. Those parts are beautifully researched, but there is nothing about Anita's neighborhood in Roxbury, and the cheerful attitude of her father after working two shifts as a janitor, is cringe-inducingly naive. She could have read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, which includes a colorful section on Roxbury, or other books by African American authors. As it is, Anita's struggle as a black passing as white is white-washed - a white, priviliged woman's romantic idea what it might have been like. No insight there what we could not deduce ourselves.

Overall, I am very disappointed. This could have been so much more. Two stars for the subject selection and the effort. show less

This was a very enjoyable book, and very difficult to categorize. Perhaps all the more enjoyable for that. It's a story of family secrets bubbling up from the past, an historical drama dealing with the difficulties of French colonial Indochina in the 1930s, a cat-and-mouse intrigue tale about two women who are at odds and yet pretending to be best friends; a story about a woman whose sanity is possibly coming apart; a love story that teeters on the edge of disaster with the threat of mental show more illness, etc.

The reader becomes absorbed in the life and travails of the protagonist, Jessie, who is living in Vietnam with her adoring husband and lovely child, and trying to make her way as a colonialist's wife, but her tale is not completely innocent. She is wrapped up in a family whose business dealings in Colonial Indochina leave a lot to be desired, ethically. Jessie's qualms about the family's actions, her husband's stewardship of their rubber plantations, her own complicity in evil, the moral ambiguity surrounding her own marriage, and many other issues, were deliciously complicated and morally murky. I loved that about this book -- that nearly all the characters are complicated creatures with ambiguous motives, neither villain nor hero. The issues that the author deals with -- the ability or impossibility to escape one's past, the complications arising from financial necessity, the actions one takes for monetary salvation, among many others -- are engrossing and complex. Then on top of that there's just a rollicking good suspense story, and a mystery which opens the book, unsolved until the end.

Kudos to the author for not painting the issues of colonialization of Indochina with a 21st-century moralizing brush, too often a fault in historical fiction. The author does justice to the complex nature of the time period and the events therein.

An overall really good read. show less

Full Disclosure: I was given early access to this book in exchange for writing an impartial review. Scheduled publication, July 2021.

A fast, engaging read about a smart, well-educated woman in 1950s New York City and her transition from career girl to marriage and motherhood. With a bit of Cold War thrown in.

World War II has recently ended and Rina (who speaks 4 languages) is lucky enough to land a job as a translator at the newly formed United Nations. There she makes close friends, meets show more interesting people (like Eleanor Roosevelt) makes a contribution toward a more peaceful society, and has plenty of time to date and socialize.

That is until she falls for a prominent, handsome, ambitious and fabulously wealthy pediatric surgeon who admires her intelligence, humor, and unique take on the world. Rina, aged 30 (old by 1950s standards) agrees to marry him. (Honestly, who wouldn’t?) And the two begin married life in a large apartment where Rina wears designer clothes, attends galas, and hob-knobs with the city’s elite.

As Rina slides increasingly into her husband’s world, she slowly realizes how much she has given up. So, when a federal agent says the government needs her language abilities to help fight communism, how can she possibly say NO?

That’s all I’ll say about the plot, not wanting to spoil your read. In many ways, Rina is ahead of her time. In 1950s America, any woman questioning the “fulfillment” associated with the traditional roles of wife and mother would be suspect. Particularly to a husband. And especially when he’s prominent and rich, and maybe a bit spoiled. But, fortunately, Rina finds some understanding, in surprising places.

In one sense, this feels like a coming of age story, even though Rina is in her 30s. It’s about a woman trying to figure out what truly makes her happy and what she’s willing to risk to be happy.

The characters are multi-dimensional, the relationships realistic. And the plot is NOT predictable. A few things in this novel didn’t quite ring true to me. For example, professional women having lots of casual sex in an era before birth control pills and when virginity was still prized. But perhaps that’s simply my own naive take about what was really happening in the 1940s and 1950s. show less