“Early in this Zen-inspired novel, Rose, a botanist living in Paris, is summoned to Kyoto for the reading of her father’s will. Rose never met her father, a Japanese art dealer, but he turns out to have hired photographers to secretly document her life for him. Now, at his behest, his assistant guides Rose on a tour of gardens, temples, and restaurants designed to reveal the heart of Japan... The story is interspersed with aphoristic Japanese tales from various periods, as melancholy is gradually transmuted into joy.”
Read the full review in The New Yorker.
