Tag: gifted

Gifted is a short novel about a woman working as a hostess in Tokyo who suddenly has to care for her terminally ill mother she left home to get away from. The unnamed narrator lives and works in Kabukicho, the famed entertainment district in Shinjuku, and her tattoos hide the burn scars from an incident with her mother when she was younger. Now, her mother is very ill, and stays with her between hospital visits, and the narrator must face her relationship with her mother as well as the other people in her life.

This book is a dreamlike experience to read, following the narrator’s thoughts and her constant returning to her apartment, and offering glimpses into elements of her life rather than in-depth explorations given the short length. You never quite hear everything about her and her mother, but that feels right given that she doesn’t know everything about her mother, and her mother’s death isn’t bringing some dramatic closure to their troubled relationship. Instead, you hear about how she unlocks her door—the main form of safety she seems to have—and snippets about her and others working in Kabukicho, not just the hostess and host clubs and the clients, but also the twenty-four hour drugstore, the difficulty getting a taxi. The way these parts are woven together was something I really enjoyed, though there were occasional points where the translation made for clunky sentences that were hard to get your head around.

Gifted offers a novella about a difficult mother-daughter relationship that also picks up on the tiny details of the narrator’s life and offers glimpses into Kabukicho. Like the poetry the narrator’s mother writes, this short book doesn’t give you everything laid out as a chronological narrative, but leaves space for piecing things together or not knowing.