The Commoner: A Novel

by John Burnham Schwartz Narrated by Janet Song

Overview

It is 1959 when Haruko, a young woman of good family, marries the Crown Prince of Japan, the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. She is the first nonaristocratic woman to enter the mysterious, almost hermetically sealed, and longest-running monarchy in the world. Met with cruelty and suspicion by the Empress and her minions, Haruko is controlled at every turn. The only interest the court has in Haruko is her ability to produce an heir. After finally giving birth to a son, she suffers a nervous breakdown and loses her voice. However, determined not to be crushed by the imperial bureaucrats, Haruko perseveres. Thirty years later, now Empress herself, she plays a crucial role in persuading another young woman-a rising star in the foreign ministry-to accept the marriage proposal of her son, the Crown Prince. The consequences are tragic and dramatic.

Told from Haruko's perspective, meticulously researched, and superbly imagined, THE COMMONER is the mesmerizing, moving, and surprising story of a brutally rarefied and controlled existence at once hidden and exposed, and of a complex relationship between two isolated women who, despite being visible to all, are truly understood only by each other.

Editorial Reviews

Lesley Downer

Out of this heart-wrenching history, Schwartz has woven a delicate, elegiac tale, intensely moving and utterly convincing. He has imaginatively reconstructed the private story while remaining largely true to the scant details that have been reported to the public…Schwartz has clearly done extensive research into the lives of the empress and the crown princess and seems, as well, to have had extraordinary access to the Imperial Household Agency, whose members are the strictly traditional guardians of Japan's royal family and its elaborate court life. He vividly evokes the secrets and ceremonies of the imperial palace, including the wedding of Haruko and the crown prince and the ritual called the Daijosai, which takes place on the occasion of the new emperor's coronation and is performed by him alone and unseen. It's magical to have the curtain imaginatively lifted on these mysteries.
—The New York Times

Kunio Francis Tanabe

…readers should be delighted. Schwartz has written a mesmerizing novel full of tenderness and compassion, one that convincingly invests the Japanese empress's voice with all the nuance it demands.
—The Washington Post

Kirkus Reviews

Schwartz (Claire Marvel, 2001, etc.) taps into the increasingly popular trend of blurring the boundary between fiction and nonfiction with this imagining of the lives of the current Empress and Crown Princess of Japan, both alive but seldom seen or heard from in public. Although the names of the Empress and Crown Princess have been changed, Schwartz holds close to the basic facts of their lives for most of his novel. Haruko is the beloved only child of a wealthy sake manufacturer, a serious student of art. She meets the Crown Prince while playing tennis, winning the doubles match against him and his heart almost simultaneously. Soon the Crown Prince, through his primary advisor/aide Dr. Watanabe, approaches the family with a marriage proposal. At first Haruko's parents resist, sending her away to Europe, but they soften under Watanabe's pressure while the Crown Prince woos Haruko in telephone conversations. Haruko, the first commoner to marry into the royal family, must relinquish her past, including her family, upon her marriage. The empress turns out to be the royal mother-in-law from hell and Haruko finds herself a prisoner of the royal protocol. Shortly after her son's birth, she has a nervous breakdown. Although she eventually recovers, she never truly enjoys her life as Crown Princess and then Empress. Years later, Haruko's son falls in love with another commoner, Harvard-educated Keiko, who has already begun a promising diplomatic career. Haruko empathizes with the young woman even as she manipulates her into marrying the prince. But when the strains of the Imperial Court endanger Keiko's mental health, Haruko helps her escape. The details of life for upper-class Japanese duringand after World War II are fascinating, as are the rituals of the Imperial court, but readers may be put off by the way Schwartz creates thoughts and feelings for his thinly veiled characterizations of living people. Not likely to go over well with the Japanese royals.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169670752
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	01/22/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

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