Chorus of Mushrooms (20th Anniversary Edition)

by Hiromi Goto

Overview

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Caribbean and Canadian Region)!

Co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award!

Hiromi Goto’s debut novel has become a Canadian classic. It is a powerful narrative of three generations of Japanese Canadian women on the Canadian prairies.

Funny, scandalous, and melancholic, this superlative narrative is filled with echoes and retellings, memories and Japanese folk tales. From The Tale of Genji to the Calgary Stampede, from sharing of recipes to hitchhiking the Trans-Canada highway, it weaves a story that slides between histories, countries, and desire. It is a timeless exploration of immigration and belonging.

This twentieth anniversary reprinting of the landmark novel includes an Afterword by Larissa Lai (When Fox is a Thousand, Salt Fish Girl) and an interview with the author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781927063491
Publisher:	NeWest Publishers, Limited
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Series:	Nunatak First Fiction Series , #5
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Hiromi Goto is the award-winning author of many books for youth and adults. Her adult novel, Chorus of Mushrooms (1994) was the recipient of the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book as well as co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award. Her second adult novel, The Kappa Child, was awarded the James Tiptree Jr. Award. Hopeful Monsters was her first collection of short stories and in 2009, she co-wrote, with David Bateman, her first book of poetry, Wait Until Late Afternoon. More recently her YA novel, Half World, was winner of the 2010 Sunburst Award and the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC-Dublin Literary Award. Her latest YA publication is Darkest Light. Hiromi is also a mentro at Simon Fraser University's The Writer's Studio, an editor, and monther of two grown children. She is at work on graphic novels and short stories.

In honour of its 20th anniversary, NeWest Press released a special edition of her seminal Chorus of Mushrooms in Spring 2014.

Read an Excerpt

We lie in bed, listen to the click of blinds, watch a thin thread of dusty cobweb weave back and forth, back and forth, in the waves of air we cannot see. The blankets and sheet are a heap at the foot of the bed, and we are warm only where skin is touching skin. My shoulder, my arm, the swell of my hip. The curve of my thigh. Lean lightly into you. My fingertips are icy, but I am too comfortable to move. To bother getting up and arrange the blankets. I only want to savour the quiet of skin on skin. The murmur of our blood beneath our surface touch. Our breathing unconsciously falls into a pattern, follows the movement of the strand of cobweb that weaves above our heads. You lift your hand to rest its weight, the palm rough, just beneath my breast.

“Will you tell me a story?” you ask. Eyes on the strand of dust.

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me a story about your Obāchan?”

“Yes,” I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Slowly.

“Will you tell me a true story?” you ask, with unconscious longing.

“A lot of people ask that. Have you ever noticed?” I roll onto my side. Prop my elbow and rest my chin, my cheek, into the curve of my hand. “It’s like people want to hear a story, and then, after they’re done with it, they can stick the story back to where it came from. You know?”

“Not really,” you say, and slide a little lower, so that your head is nestled beneath my chin. Your face in my neck. “But will you still tell me?”

“Sure, but bear with my language, won’t you? My Japanese isn’t as good as my English, and you might not get everything I say. But that doesn’t mean the story’s not there to understand. Wakatte kureru kashira? Can you listen before you hear?”

“Trust me,” you say.

I pause. Take a deep breath, then spiral into sound.

“Here’s a true story.”

Mukāshi, mukāshi, ōmukashi …

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Chorus of Mushrooms

"Hiromi Goto expertly layers the experiences of a Japanese immigrant woman, her emotionally estranged daughter and her beloved granddaughter into a complex fabric and compelling story."
~ Ottawa Citizen

"Such a love for words is evident in Chorus of Mushrooms, which contains passages of breathtaking beauty."
~ The Globe and Mail

"Hiromi Goto, a Japanese-Canadian writer, has written a masterpiece of our times ... The readability of the text is attributable to the author's craftsmanship, and one feels like reading it over and over again."
~ The Herald (Harare, Zimbabwe)

"Not only is Goto's language precise and evocative, she has crafted a complex and poetic text that weaves realities and mysteries into a subtle pattern."
~ Edmonton Journal

"[a]n undeniably important novel."
~ Jenny Heijun Wills, The Winnipeg Review

"Through these three women, we see how culture trickles away as one adapts to a different culture and/or lifestyle. And yet, Hiromi Goto asserts that culture never truly disappears. It is always there, lurking beneath our nails."
~ The Scientific Detective blog

From the Publisher