I had a whole blog post ready for my review of this book and how it made me feel. Ultimately, I felt what I had to say was too intimate.

I finished Hiroshima in the Morning by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto last night amidst pains that were keeping me awake. Perhaps it was this insomnia that kept my otherwise judgmental mind at bay. This book is the memoir of Ms. Rizzuto’s time ten years ago in Japan after winning a fellowship to write a novel based on the Japanese Americans and survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. She is frustrated by her inability to get what she was looking for in her initial interviews with the survivors, the hibakusha.

Then the events of 9/11 that rocked Americans and the world changed everything. Suddenly, the hibakusha cannot stop talking about their memories, their experiences. She is swept away by their stories. In the process she begins to discover a new way of thinking, of viewing the world. She lets go of her Western need to label, compartmentalize, and categorize her experiences. In letting go of her need to understand through those labels, she begins to actually grasp understanding.

With understanding comes the realization that she is now changed and is unwilling to go back to who and what she was, a wife and a mother, defined only by those roles. The author has found her individuality. We see her struggle, lay blame, make excuses and ignore the crumbling of her marriage.

The narrative is interspersed with transcriptions from her interviews providing a framework for her memories. Ms. Rizzuto learns that memory is not fact but a story we tell to understand ourselves. Her story flows gently, slowly, easily. I was kept from my judgments and preconceived notions. A feat of gargantuan proportions.

I began to relate to the author’s biography until the moment she leaves her home and family and New York to travel the thousands of miles to Japan. Her identity framed by those around her, first daughter, then lover, wife, and finally mother. She moved from each stage without allowing time for her self to emerge. In this I saw our similarities and I worried. Who am I, then?

Then reality sank in. Unlike Ms. Rizzuto, I do not feel as though I have been defined by my role as wife. My husband has made no demands of me other than to be myself. We actually argue about this very topic. He fears that I would lose myself in him, and he does not wish that for me.

I am also not reluctant to become a mother. I am not one, but I hope to be one some day. If there are days when I realize what I would lose in becoming a mother, moments like this one; the television is off while my husband sleeps and I sit typing out this post. Or the ability to stay in bed all day on a Saturday reading until hunger or the need for companionship brings me downstairs. I know things will change, but ultimately, my children will be worth it.

I do not stand on the precipice, then of suddenly discovering I have no sense of self because I have delayed discovering her while I allowed others to define me. I may not have become fully actualized, but neither do I fear loss of self.

Ultimately, this book gave me a glimpse into another woman’s journey of self discovery, of change, irrevocable, destructive and renewing. It made me think and fear for my sense of self. In the end, it made me realize how important my marriage and my husband are to me and how blessed I am in having this man as my husband.

I cannot say how this book would affect another person, woman or man, and so I do not know how to end my recommendation. In the end, you need to decide for yourself if you can take this much self reflection.