Plum Rains

Category: Book
By (author): Romano-Lax, Andromeda
Subject:  FICTION / General
  FICTION / Historical
  FICTION / Medical
  FICTION / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: June 2018
Format: Book-hardcover
Pages: 408
Size: 8.25in x 5.50in
Availability:
Unavailable

Additional Notes

From The Publisher*In a tour-de-force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction.
 
2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at an all-time low and the elderly are living increasingly longer lives. This population crisis has precipitated the mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia, as well as the development of finely tuned artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short.

In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been in Japan for the last five years, works as caretaker for Sayoko Itou, a moody, secretive woman about to turn 100 years old. One day, Sayoko receives a present: a cutting-edge robot "friend" that will teach itself to anticipate Sayoko's every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object-one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. Meanwhile, Sayoko becomes attached to the machine. The old woman has been hiding secrets of her own for almost a century-and she's too old to want to keep them anymore.
 
What she reveals is a hundred-year saga of forbidden love, hidden identities, and the horrific legacy of WWII and Japanese colonialism-a confession that will tear apart her own life and Angelica's. Is the helper robot the worst thing that could have happened to the two women-or is it forcing the changes they both desperately needed?
Review Quote*Praise for Andromeda Romano-Lax

"Impressive and richly atmospheric."
-The New York Times Book Review
 
"Riveting."
-People Magazine
 
"With great care and skill, Romano-Lax teases out the human complexities, exploring the differing values, desires and fears of the various characters while creating [an] atmosphere of chilling menace and threat."
Sydney Morning Herald
 
"Both shocking and thought-provoking; and the intimate struggles of a woman weighing her value, utility, and satisfaction both within and outside the home certainly resonate today." 
-The Boston Globe 
 
"Scorching . . . By detailing how the study of human behavior differs from understanding people, and how smart women can miss the obvious and make mistakes, Romano-Lax sheds a harsh yet deeply moving light on feminism and psychology, in theory and in practice."
-Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Biographical NoteAndromeda Romano-Lax is the author of The Spanish Bow, a New York Times Editors' Choice that has been translated into 11 languages, The Detour, and Behave, as well as numerous works of nonfiction. She teaches creative writing and is a co-founder of 49 Writers, a statewide literary organization. She has lived in Alaska, Taiwan and Mexico and is currently living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.