Gasa-Gasa Girl
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3.9 • 7 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the time she was a child, Mas Arai’s daughter, Mari, was completely gasa-gasa–never sitting still, always on the go, getting into everything. And Mas, busy tending lawns, gambling, and struggling to put his Hiroshima past behind him, never had much time for the family he was trying to support. For years now, his resentful daughter has lived a continent away in New York City, and had a life he knew little about. But an anxious phone call from Mari asking for his help plunges the usually obstinate Mas into a series of startling situations from maneuvering in an unfamiliar city to making nice with his tall, blond son-in-law, Lloyd, to taking care of a sickly child…to finding a dead body in the rubble of a former koi pond.
The victim was Kazzy Ouchi, a half-Japanese millionaire who also happened to be Mari and Lloyd’s boss. Stumbling onto the scene, Mas sees more amiss than the detectives do, but his instinct is to keep his mouth shut. Only when the case threatens his daughter and her family does Mas take action: patiently, stubbornly tugging at the end of a tangled, dangerous mystery. And as he does, he begins to lay bare a tragic secret on the dark side of an American dream.…
Both a riveting mystery and a powerful story of passionate relationships across a cultural divide, Gasa-Gasa Girl is a tale told with heart and wisdom: an unforgettable portrait of fathers, daughters, and other strangers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
If not as flawless as Nirahara's debut, Summer of the Big Bachi (2004), the second outing for Japanese-American Mas Harai Hiroshima survivor, Californian, gardener and sleuth offers many of the same felicities. Mas's estranged daughter, Mari, whom he has described since babyhood as gasa-gasa (constantly moving), invites him to New York City, where everyone seems to be gasa-gasa. Son-in-law Lloyd, also a gardener, has requested Mas's help in restoring a traditional Japanese garden attached to a mansion in Brooklyn's Park Slope. The father of the owner, tycoon Kazzy Ouchi, was the original owner's gardener, and Ouchi's daughter now oversees the development of the mansion into a museum about the Japanese in New York. Vandalism, theft and neighborhood opposition already threaten the project, but it hits a really big snag when Mas discovers Ouchi's corpse in the dry koi pond. Mas and old friend Tug Yamada begin an investigation that leads to a much sought after Japanese diary recording the sordid history of the mansion's early tenants. The endearing, quietly dignified Mas, supported by a cast of spirited New Yorkers, as well as the distinctive Japanese-flavored prose, make this a memorable read.
