HARMLESS LIKE YOU

by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

This beautifully written novel somehow manages to feel like a meditation or poetry while simultaneously spinning out the story of two lives over a sixty-year span. Yuki Oyama is a young Japanese girl growing up in New York in the 60s.  When her parents decide to return to Japan, she chooses to stay with a friend to finish her high school years in America. But without any sense of motivation or direction, her life begins to meander off track and she ends up working as a secretary while dreaming about attending art school.  Her relationships with men and her art are fraught with self-doubt and heartbreak.

The second, interwoven story follows her now adult son Jay as he travels to see his long estranged mother and inform her of his father’s death.  For much of the book, the reader can’t quite see how the pieces of the story fit together and time can be perplexingly fluid.

Ultimately, Harmless Like You portrays the struggle for selfhood of two people who are extremely hard on themselves. I didn’t always enjoy the emotions it brought up in me, particularly at this time filled with self-reflection. But the beauty of the prose and the unique story make this a book I definitely recommend. (Lily)