Wildcat Dome was the last novel by Japanese author Yuko Tsushima. Written and set in the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear accident it centres aroung three characters rasied in an orphanage. Tsushima uses these characters to explore and reflect on Japanese history and how it informs the challenges of the present. This is a tough but rewarding book.

Frustrating, but a story that highlights and tells important lessons that everyone can take away from. This feels very realistic and timely, and although hard to follow/understand at times, a powerful read nonetheless

I’ve loved the works of the late Yuko Tsushima that I have read in the past, and was excited to read this newly published English translation of her penultimate novel Wildcat Dome (translation by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda), first published in 2013 as ヤマネコ・ドーム. This was more hazy and ambiguous in nature, suited to its rumination on identity, (found) family, trauma, memory, and the legacies of violence, US imperialism, colonialism, and nuclear fallout.

The novel opens in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, with Mitch (now in his 60s) returning to Japan to seek out Yonko, hoping to convince her to leave Japan for safety. But she is reluctant, memories of their childhood friend Kazu, family ties, and histories all keeping her tethered. The novel is seen primarily through the experiences of this group of mixed-race orphans, children born between Japanese mothers and American GI fathers during the US occupation of Japan.

As with much of the book, the backstories are never explicitly outlined, reflecting the broad realities they live in as is. As a whole, they are stigmatised by Japanese society, for non-specific reasons that perhaps include post-war psychologies, anti-black racism, being of mixed race, single motherhood; just being different. Raised in an orphanage, their fond memories of this time is forever tainted by a tragic death of one of their own in their midst. Details elude them well into the future, the truth of this horrific event unable to be confronted directly yet remaining present all the same. Later dispersed across the globe, the narrative flits between the characters across their individual and collective pasts, present, and future.

Wildcat Dome is a haunting read, a feeling of fear, shame, and alienation pervading the book. There’s a sense of denial present, an unwillingness to reckon with a past that continues to have long-reaching repercussions, at an individual and societal level. This is all enriched by the beautiful writing, rich in imagery, atmosphere, and recurring motifs. It reads like a lament for human suffering on a global scale, the painful cost of colonialism, war, and violence borne by citizens across the globe.

At the same time, it looks inwardly, grieving the lives impacted by nuclear disaster and violence. While some of this is caused by external forces, such as the effects of US militarism and their bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the author casts a critical eye on Japan’s own role in perpetuating violence and suffering, through the part of government and company leadership in the Fukushima nuclear disaster, society’s marginalisation of vulnerable minority groups and anyone deemed different, and its own imperialist legacies.

I did also appreciate its examination of mixed-heritage identity, the characters simultaneously insider-outsiders, never quite belonging in Japan or elsewhere. Interestingly, Kazu had moved to New Zealand for a time, and he spoke of being mistaken for Māori, this minor plot point noting not just his difference, but also an occasion to draw on the similarities between te reo Māori and the Japanese language, as if building solidarities through literature. Similar parallels are drawn throughout the narrative, such as via Odile, a mixed race character Mitch meets later in life, herself a legacy of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. While these identities have impacted the course of their lives, it doesn’t need to define any of them either, their paths forward still open to their own making.

It is Odile that remarks on wildcats being present in Paris, though she has never seen them. She says to Mitch: “sometimes when your eyes flash green they look just like a wildcat’s.” Unseen, but there, its registered presence heightening one’s consciousness. The original Japanese cover has a picture of the Runit Dome, a bomb crater repository of radioactive waste accumulated in the wake of US nuclear testing in the Pacific, located on Runit Island in the Enewetak Atoll of the Marshall Islands. Concerns to do with its structural integrity and surrounding environmental contamination were raised then, pressing still with climate change and rising sea levels, as well as the threat of deep sea mining. From this point in space-time, it’s concerning still as the same old warmongering colonial powers continue to plunder, stoke fear in the masses, and attempt to manufacture consent for increasing (nuclear) militarisation.

I finished this with all that in mind, wondering what the author would think if she was alive today. I was so curious to know what she had in mind while writing this as well, and how it was received by readers at the time. There’s a heading titled ‘Author’s Note’ in the galley I read, with nothing to follow, unfortunately. Perhaps the final copy will include one.

A beguiling, compelling work that confronts identity, trauma, memory, truth, and survival, as well as the legacies of nuclear colonialism and imperialism that is still scarily relevant today. We are all connected. It is never too late for us as a people to reckon with the truths of our pasts, our present global realities, and determine the futures we wish to see. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my copy of this!

I tried, I really tried to read it, put it down for some time, picked it up later, but it was too chaotic.
I felt like reading this book was like trying to follow the ball in a game of pinball. The different character viewpoints, the time period changes back and forth, the dialogues that weren't really dialogues : chaos !
And that's too bad because the themes really interested me, but I gave up because this book was giving me a headache trying to figure out who was where and when.

"She'd told her son this long ago: it's not the dead who suffer most, but the ones who go on living."

This translation was published yesterday! The original was published in 2013, a few years before her death. I just learnt that the author is Osamu Dazai's daughter, though he wasn't around to raise her. The narrative style is dream-like and flits between different narrators with no clear attempt at linearity so you have to piece the story together and be comfortable with uncertainty, the same uncertainty that plagues the characters as they examine their incomplete memories of their past.

This is a story set in post-war Japan about children who were the direct products of or directly affected by the war. Two mixed-race boys left behind by American GIs were adopted by a woman, and the boys grew up alongside their cousin, Yonko. Mixed-race children have to endure prejudice from the other locals despite being born and raised in Japan. Many years ago, these children witnessed the accidental death of another girl from the orphanage but everyone tried to move on from it. The only who could not was the boy responsible, who commits suicide decades later. Over time, the children from the orphanage got adopted into American families one by one. Some of the boys who survived one war ended up drafted into another in Vietnam by virtue of their new American nationality.

Everyone returns a decade later when the founder of the orphanage gets cancer. More years later, when the children have become adults in their 50s, the Fukushima nuclear disaster happens and Tokyo itself becomes poisoned; insects breed like crazy and plants mutate. It becomes clear that everyone in this story is poisoned in some way by the war—damaged children grow up 'lopsided' (to borrow Yiyun Li's term) and unable to move on from their past traumas, women struggle to raise children who then grow up to struggle themselves, and the idea of a complete and stable family is but an ideal—or worse, haunted by signs and survivor's guilt.

I struggled with this. It's a challenging and dense read with themes that range from the way biracial children are treated in Japan to forgiveness. And at the heart of it, sort of, is a murder of a child by other children. The colors orange and green loom large but regrettably I didn't understand exactly why. That said, this is one I'm glad to have tackled. I admired it more than enjoyed it. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. For fans of experimental, world, and/or literary fiction.

In post-war Japan, a group of children (consisting mostly of biracial kids born of Japanese mothers and US service members) witness a tragic event that haunts them. As they grow older and go in different directions, they continue to be drawn together by the unanswered questions around the event. The different voices and perspectives add layers of uncertainty to the story, and it was difficult to follow at times. Parts felt tedious and while I'm glad I stuck with it till the end, I didn't find this book particularly memorable.

3.75

This book feels different from other Yuko Tsushima's works but as I advanced to the story, it feels familiar. It took me quite a long time to finally finish this because the narrative took a bit of effort to grasp but the moment I read the first sentence I know I would love it. Which I did. I loved the narrative, it feels quite poetic, a bit distant but beautiful.

This book dealt with unresolved trauma and denial, alongside with events that happened in the world and the effect of those such events, such as Vietnam War and the earthquake and nuclear incident that followed it in Japan in 2011. But what I caught the most in this book is actually the way all the characters were trying to live their own respected lives carrying the trauma and the prejudice they have for being mixed-race children. I just wished the ending to be more concluded but I guess it's fine.

In all its difficulty and challenges, this book is about the many ways of people living their lives, continue on living even if it's taking a lot from them, while carrying something deep in their hearts.

It's either you love it, or you miss it.

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the ARC.

I ended up finding this book frustrating.

It had a really good premise to pull me in with this group of children witnessing the drowning of another child, but as the plot developed it found it more and more enigmatic with no real conclusions or character arcs that made any sense to me.

The writing was beautiful with lots of imagery particularly surrounding the colours green and orange. Unfortunately, I failed to make sense of it so I'm afraid it was wasted on me. The changing perspectives and timelines along with the lack of speech marks were disorientating.

Ultimately, I just didn't feel clever enough to follow what the author was trying to do here. There were themes that never seemed to go anywhere, character arcs that ended in them abruptly dying and an enigmatic prose and plot that just became frustrating.

Sorry, not one for me.

This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

The book is definitely very philosophical, maybe too much so and some of the timelines and perspectives are a little unclear. But otherwise, I like the translation. It feels unforced, real. It has brought me closer to a period in time in Japanese culture that I knew very little about. And yet, some chapters/sections felt a little long-winded. The children were at the pond when the little girl fell in but it’s is a lot of reiterating and even some repetition.

It is mortifying to read that the mother of the (possible) killer covers for him. This was definitely a hard read especially as through the entirety of the book it was so clear how much the death of the little girl impacted all the children and their mothers. It is ironic that the mother of the murderer felt so superior to the orphans and the adoptive parents.

I also don’t quite understand the conversations in the book. People “talk” to each other in their heads, they have conversations with someone that isn’t even there. It confused me. Overall, I must admit, I didn’t quite understand the book. Especially the ending.

First I want to give my thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Yuko Tsushima for allowing me to read this ARC!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5/5

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but unfortunately, it didn’t quite resonate with me. Despite being just over 250 pages, it took me 25 days to finish, as I struggled to follow the characters and their timelines.

That said, I appreciate how the story captures the harsh realities faced by GI children and the challenges of being biracial. However, I felt that the narrative became too fixated on the Murder of Color Orange, to the point where it overshadowed other aspects of the story. At times, I found myself wishing the characters would simply confront the truth or move forward, rather than remaining stuck in their unresolved pasts.

While this book wasn't for me, I can see how it might appeal to readers who enjoy introspective and layered narratives about identity, trauma, and justice.

This is also the first time that a book cover didn’t appear on my Kindle, which was a bit disappointing

A modern novel about Japan dealing with issues from biracial children and their treatment after WWII ( nicknamed Wildcats ) to the Fukushima nuclear disaster and a murderer triggered by the colour orange. In the beginning, I found the writing style and translation difficult to follow and dizzying structure but after a while, you get used to it and get your bearings. The topics hit on the truth of Japanese society issues and are a form of protest against injustice and conservatism of Japanese society. The writing is elegant, true to the form of literary fiction there is a threading of the colour orange that is skillfully placed throughout the novel drawing us into the mystery aspect of the novel and keeping the reader drawn into the story.

Thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC. This is my honest review.

While the writing was sometimes beautiful, the story was so disjointed and unorganized that I felt very removed from the book.

The characters and their motivations didn’t make much sense to me. There are heavy subjects here, but I had a hard time focusing when I already felt so disconnected, and as a result much of this story fell flat for me.

I think this was simply a case of me being the wrong reader for this novel, because I get the sense that someone with more knowledge of Japanese culture would get much more out of this book. I would still recommend this to the right reader.

the writing style is intense, iunterwoven, and a bit hard to understand at times, but it's still so beautifully written and the charactes are awesome. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

4 stars

Honestly, I was a bit reluctant to start this because so far I haven't read anything from Yuko Tsushima that really grabbed my attention, but this novel is my turning point. This is the first Tsushima novel that had me gripped from the start to the finish. Going back from the past to the present, over the course of 60 years, the novel explores the themes of guilt, loss, grief, shame, and discrimination within the post-war to modern Japanese society through multiple character POVs. All of the topics are well explored and expressed through the lives of the characters, making it a very compelling story.

This is a chilling story about guilt and how that guilt can follow you throughout life. This book is well written and will take your breath away in some places.

This story follows the lives of Mitch, Yonko, and Kazu, and something that's been haunting them since childhood. All of them are mixed-race raised in the same orphanage, and it's not easy being one in Japan.
To be quite honest, I am not a fan of this book by Yuko Tsushima. There are many inner dialogues and most of them don't use proper quotation mark that I get so lost trying to figure out our speaker at the time. The book discusses important topic that's quite heavy. Unfortunately I like this one less than Territory of Light by the same author.

I had a lot of trouble following the storyline with the multiple characters whose names changed depending on the time period. You really have to work to follow each individual character. The English-speaking reader could use some help with this perhaps in the form of an annotated list of characters. However, the theme of the book and the way that the lives of these children played out was truly fascinating and done very well. Once I realized how the book was put together and what the author was trying to achieve, I appreciated it and it did keep my interest. I can well imagine how it works so much better in Japanese; no doubt this would be a challenging work to translate. It would certainly be an excellent choice for a book club that examined the historical reception of mixed race children in Japan.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's the kind of story that stays with you and makes you think.

Mitch and Yoko meet again, a year after the death of Mitch's brother. All of them were raised in an orphanage outside Tokyo and they consider themselves family.

I was looking forward to reading this book, but I can safely say it wasn't for me. Parts were beautiful, the old woman, living alone with grief, for example, parts were confusing.
Overall it just didn't grip me.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion

This one didn’t live up to my expectations. Its subject matter is weighty, grave and interesting - Japanese orphans, sometimes the product of rape, sometimes just the byproduct of war, explore their identities, alignments and alliances against a background of murder and nuclear catastrophe. All rather unusual and at times original. And yet it reads flatly, in a monotone of delivery that loops between timelines, perspectives, continents and identities. I became confused and deadened, rather than compelled. Perhaps there’s a cultural gap. But I was disappointed.