Songs for Ghosts

Gr 10 Up–Puccini’s Madame Butterfly concerns a 15-year-old Japanese child bride married to an American soldier who commits suicide after giving birth to their son. Kumagai reimagines that son centuries later as a 17-year-old gay teen living in California. His Japanese mother died when he was small, and his military father marries Kate, an American; baby Benny is Adam’s half-brother. In the novel’s soft opening, Adam affectionately cares for Benny, while Kate consoles Adam about his first real breakup. Unlike the tragic opera, this blended family loves and is loved. However, Adam feels his separation and distance: he’s not the biological son of both his parents, he struggles to learn the Japanese language in classes they insist on, and they’re unwilling to talk about his mother’s death. Then Adam discovers a small box in the attic containing a diary written in English by an anonymous Japanese woman. She, too, gave up her son to be raised in America by his father; but afterward, she survived and became a feminist and writer. Kumagai debunks the trope of the self-sacrificing Asian woman perpetuated by Madame Butterfly. The diary also provides missing clues to his mother’s life, though its length is excessive. Adam’s coming-of-age as a young gay man after his breakup is the more compelling storyline. He also finds answers to many questions about his mother’s life and his own identity.