The Printmaker's Daughter

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY SEP 19, 2011

Govier's (Creation) lavishly researched and brilliant historical novel, published in Canada last year as The Ghost Brush, is set during Japan's repressive 19th-century Edo period, when artists and writers were suppressed and Japan hid itself from the outside world. Against that background the author fictionalizes the life of Oei, a little-known Japanese ukiyo-e (an artist of the everyday) whose gender keeps her from the recognition heaped upon her father, Hokusai. When Oei is young, her penniless father seeks artistic inspiration in the seedy Yoshiwara district, as well as with Shino, a young girl sold into prostitution by a vengeful husband. Oei accompanies her father on visits and we see through her eyes how powerless women live. Govier's light linguistic touch draws readers into an increasingly harrowing tale of artistic crackdowns during which the defiant Hokusai takes to the road to escape the authorities and his creditors, often with his daughter in tow. These trips, later taken by Oei on her own, are fascinating ambulations inconceivable in modern society. Hokusai passes his questioning nature onto his daughter, who is always more mature and responsible than her quixotic father; she manages their meager funds, runs his studio, paints under his direction (and name), and nurses him through illness. Though Hokusai cherishes Oei above his other children (he fathered her at 40), he puts himself first, which is illustrated to heart-breaking effect when he railroads her into giving him one of her commissions. Govier examines women's subservience to men through the dual narratives of Shino's sale into prostitution and Oei's deference to her father, even as two talented men, her lovers, nurture her talent and push her to seek recognition. The episodic nature of the novel, most apparent during a Dutch doctor's visit to Japan, is its only flaw, and a minor one (at first glance, the doctor seems extraneous, but eventually he becomes more than a device to teach Oei about the outside world). Govier astonishes throughout in her ability to write epic themes intimately, particularly in the lyrical, absorbing, and intense final hundred pages. She illustrates how the clash between change and the forces of the status quo literally hold Oei hostage, with emotionally wrenching results.