The first 115 pages of Marie Mutsuki Mockett's debut novel, "Picking Bones From Ash," incredibly heightened my anticipation of a great, literary read. Then the crash came, splintering my expectations from the weight of disgruntlement.
Still, although the novel ultimately falls short, Mockett must be commended for her auspicious and ambitious first foray into fiction. Mockett's prose deftly reconstructs life in rural Japan in the 1950s, a harsh world where talent is a woman's only true salvation.
Satomi, 11, lives with her mother Akiko, the beautiful and mysterious proprietor of an izakaya, or pub, in the small town of Kuma-ume. Mockett asserts from the beginning that these women are different, magically separate from their bumpkin, judgmental neighbors — "moon princesses" destined for something great, especially the young Satomi, a piano prodigy.