Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2018
352 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
A haunting and suspenseful literary tale set in 1970s New York City and World War II-era Japan, about three strong women, the dangerous ties of family and identity, and the long shadow our histories can cast.
Twin sisters Hana and Kei grew up in a tiny Hawaiian town in the 1950s and 1960s, so close they shared the same nickname. Raised in dreamlike isolation by their loving but unstable mother, they were fatherless, mixed-race, and utterly inseparable, devoted to one another. But when their cherished threesome with Mama is broken, and then further shattered by a violent, nearly fatal betrayal that neither young woman can forgive, it seems their bond may be severed forever - until, six years later, Kei arrives on Hana's lonely Manhattan doorstep with a secret that will change everything.
Told in interwoven narratives that glide seamlessly between the gritty streets of New York, the lush and dangerous landscape of Hawaii, and the horrors of the Japanese internment camps and the bombing of Hiroshima, Shadow Child is set against an epic sweep of history. Volcanos, tsunamis, abandonment, racism, and war form the urgent, unforgettable backdrop of this intimate, evocative, and deeply moving story of motherhood, sisterhood, and second chances.
"Starred Review. [Shadow Child] blends historical fiction and mystery into a haunting examination of identity and family in this perfect book club choice." - Library Journal
"A well-paced page-turner it's ultimately not, but Rizzuto's ruminative portrait of a ravaged family on the precipice of forgiveness leaves a lasting impression." - Publishers Weekly
"A long and winding fusion of sorrow and psychological processing." - Kirkus
his gripping tale of two sisters, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto probes, with great compassion, the heart-wrenching complexities of identity, memory, history, and survival." - Ruth Ozeki, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted & bestselling author of A Tale for the Time Being
"A beautifully woven historical saga wrapped in a page-turning mystery, Shadow Child explores time, memory and identity,shedding new light on the lives of Japanese-Americans, and how trauma can be its own kind of inheritance...This is a stunning story of sisterhood and survival, of healing and forgiveness, and how we find our true selves in each other." - Hannah Tinti, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Thief and The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
"Rahna Reiko Rizzuto's Shadow Child is a beautiful, unafraid novel, a story of how history shapes and fractures identity in family...Essential questions are at the heart of Shadow Child, a novel that defies categorization- part historical, part mystery, part family love story-that is on every page masterfully wrought." - Victoria Redel, award-winning author of Before Everything
"The powerful generational inheritance of secrets, lies, guilt, remorse, and what we do in the name of love is at the heart of this wise, richly layered novel about family and forgiveness. - Dani Shapiro, bestselling author of Devotion and Hourglass
This information about Shadow Child was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto is the author of the memoir Hiroshima in the Morning, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle. Her debut novel, Why She Left Us, won an American Book Award. The first woman to graduate from Columbia College with a BA in Astrophysics, she was raised in Hawaii and lives in Brooklyn.
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