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The Electrical Field: A Novel (Paperback)

by Sakamoto Kerri (Author), Kerri Sakamoto (Author) "I HAPPENED TO BE dusting the front window-ledge when I saw her running across the grassy strip of the electrical field..." (more)
Key Phrases: electrical towers, Miss Saito, Port Dover, Mackenzie Hill (more...)

3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Memory and murder are the main ingredients of Kerri Sakamoto's debut, The Electrical Field. Set in a quiet suburb somewhere in Ontario, this understated novel mines the experiences of a small community of Japanese Canadians in the 1970s. The narrator, Asako Saito, is nisei, the Canadian-born daughter of Japanese immigrants. Middle-aged, unmarried, living at home with her ailing father and feckless younger brother, Asako spends her days watching the neighbors through her front window. Of particular interest to her is Sachi, a 14-year-old girl who lives down the street: "There she is, my Sachi, crossing the field as I'd seen her on a hundred other days when she'd been skipping school to run off with Tam. Already wise to life, wiser about its possibilities than I'd ever been." Sachi is the daughter Asako never had, though what seems at first like mere maternal interest gradually reveals a more disturbing aspect. The two are drawn into the mystery surrounding the murder of a neighbor and the disappearance of her husband and two children--one of whom is Sachi's boyfriend, Tam.

But murder is really just a backdrop for Sakamoto's portrait of Asako Saito, who turns out to be a most unreliable narrator. Moving back and forth between past and present, Asako's memories of a long-dead brother, life in the World War II internment camps, and her own relationship with the murdered woman's husband become increasingly interwoven, culminating in several haunting revelations and a surprisingly tender ending. Sakamoto handles her complicated tale with grace and assurance, making The Electrical Field a quietly compelling read. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Set in the 1970s, in a bleak neighborhood of bungalows beyond which looms a field of imposing electrical towers, Sakamoto's memorable first novel explores the hidden anguish of Japanese Canadians as they struggle with the lingering effects of the WWII internment camps. The action of the novel takes place in the weeks after a Japanese-born woman and her Canadian lover are found murdered. The woman's husband, the prime suspect, abruptly withdraws their children from school and disappears, leaving everyone frightened about the childrens' fate. Narrating the story is Asako Saito, an unmarried, middle-aged neighbor, who devotes her life to caring for her ailing father and her youngest brother. Miss Saito is as wise as she is repressed, and in her years of friendship with the murder victim, Chisako, learned the unhappy truth about her friend's marriage to the man now suspected of killing her. As a detective investigating the murder questions the neighbors, Sakamoto brings this community of remarkable misfits to life through Miss Saito's thoughts and memories. Miss Saito is gradually revealed as a complex and riveting character whose own haunting memories of the internment camp and of her beloved older brother, Eiji, are woven deftly into the narrative. The spare intensity of the opening chapters gives way to the terrible beauty of Miss Saito's story. Shame and loss, immutable as the grim electrical towers, hang over Sakamoto's characters, but love also makes its distinct mark in this richly observed, elegantly restrained debut.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. (June 17, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393320480
ISBN-13: 978-0393320480
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,394,343 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
I HAPPENED TO BE dusting the front window-ledge when I saw her running across the grassy strip of the electrical field. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
electrical towers

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Saito, Port Dover, Mackenzie Hill, Detective Rossi, Hastings Park

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 11 books:

Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett in Back Matter
Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-so-far East by Pico Iyer in Front Matter
Lucky Man, Lucky Woman: (Reprint) (Norton Paperback Fiction) by Jack Driscoll in Back Matter
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton in Back Matter
Something Blue: A Novel by Jean Christopher Spaugh in Back Matter

See all 11 books this book cites

39 books cite this book:

Contemporary Canadian Women's Fiction: Refiguring Identities by Coral Ann Howells on 6 pages
MODELING MINORITY WOMEN (Studies in Asian Americans: Reconceptualizing Culture, History, and Politics) by Reshmi J. Hebbar in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
The Politics of the Visible in Asian North American Narratives by Eleanor Ty in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Morality Play by Barry Unsworth in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Yellow Jack: A Novel by Josh Russell in Back Matter

See all 39 books citing this book

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.4 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Novel densely packed with detail but ultimately unsatisfying, December 11, 2001

By	ian colford (Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada) - See all my reviews

I picked up The Electrical Field with gushing editorial endorsements echoing in my mind. The book is, in fact, well written. The characters (Asaka, Stum, Shusi, Yano) are vividly rendered. The mystery is compelling up to a point. However, too much is revealed through flashback, dream, and slowly emerging repressed memory. At a certain point I found myself growing tired of the narrator and regarding her as a cranky old woman. Her utter helplessness with regard to her emotional responses to both the past and the present wears the reader down over the course of 300 pages. Everything is fraught, everything a burden on her; scenes in which Sakamoto depicts Asaka grappling with the people in her life and the memories that haunt her acquire a numbing sameness. Ultimately I began calculating how many pages were left in the book and wondering how long it was going to take for me to finish it. This novel could have been 50 to 75 pages shorter and not have suffered. I approached The Electrical Field with high expectations that were not fulfilled, but I respect what the author was trying to do and I hope next time she'll be better served by her editors.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars somber, convoluted treatment of Japanese-Canadian relocation, April 23, 2001

By	Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Kerri Sakamoto's brooding and dark novel, "The Electrical Field" is complicated, tantalizing, but ultimately frustrating and seomwhat manipulative. Probing the terrible and unresolved scars caused by the repressive and racist removal and forced relocation of Japanese-Canadians, the novel depends on the fractured, distorted and submerged memories of its narrator who is partyto a set of homicides. Asako Saito, burdened by the death of her beloved older brother, Eiji, during relocation, swirls between past and present, unsure of her own observations, numbed by loneliness and confused by emotional swings.

Ms. Sakamoto's comnpassionately and deftly explores the psychology of her protagonist, and only slowly does the "truth," of present homicides and past relocation, emerge. However, I felt as if I were being manipulated, that denial of essential information (submerged and distorted in Asako's mind) inhibited rather than clarified understanding. Thus, by novel's end, as Asako comes to grips with her life and the shattered ruins of her memory, I had lost whatever sympathy I struggled to maintain for her.

Despite my reservations, I do consider "Field" an important contribution to our understanding of the ramifications of the horrific consequences of sanctioned government racism. Though not of the quality of her sister Canadian Joy Kogawa's novels, "Field" is at its best when it describes two profoundly different reactions to relocation: the passionate anger and demand for redress of Yano and the smothered sadness and drive for oblivion in Asako. Both characters persuasively remind us that forgetting is simply not an option and that past injustices leave incredibly complex scars. The author symbolically depicts the isolation and displacement of post-relocation life; the looming cage-like electrical towers and the ominous garbage-made hill (carrying the name of the prime minister who ordered relocation) are terrific examples of imagery.

This deserved praise cannot rescue "The Electrical Field" from its excessive murkiness. In this regard, we must await Kerri Sakamoto's future work to see if she can live up to the thwarted promise of her first novel.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Felt like Hom, March 15, 2000

By	Susan Ito (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Electrical Field (Hardcover)

This book felt like home to me. The language, the odd gestures, the social isolation, felt very familiar. Maybe it's an "insider's" book. It resonated so strongly with me and felt that it struck chords about internment and the Japanese-American (Canadian) community in a unique and disturbing way. I was very moved by it, but I can understand that not everyone might have this experience.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Novel
"The Electrical Field: A Novel" is a well written, riveting book that describes specific elements of Japanese concentration camps. Read more

Published on June 24, 2004 by Melanie

4.0 out of 5 stars Creepy Yet Amazing
The author wrote this book in a way that makes the reader both disgusted and compassionate towards the narrator of the novel. I would definitely suggest this novel to others.

Published on November 28, 2003

1.0 out of 5 stars Prose diappoints, reader gives up
I'd just finished reading Haruki Murakami's finely written "South of the Border, West of the Sun," when I picked up "The Electrical Field. Read more

Published on June 7, 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Intricate tale with spins on the Japanese Canadian exchange
In the Electrical Field we go into a mind journey with the main character. It talks about the need to be validated by someone's unconditional love. Read more

Published on April 10, 1999 by berenjena

3.0 out of 5 stars The Past Casts a Shadow on the Present
"The Past" is actually the protagonist in this novel about the Canadian-born daughter of Japanese immigrants. Read more

Published on March 16, 1999

3.0 out of 5 stars one of the bleakest novels I have ever read
This novel is very well written but I feel it is one of the bleakest novels I have ever read.

Many wrongs and grievances are described, some directly some indirectly but after... Read more

Published on January 12, 1999

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