The Costco Connection

By Ellen Schwartz

RUTH OZEKI HAD just finished the fifth draft of her novel A Tale for the Time Being, and was about to send it to her publisher, when the 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. Immediately she knew she had to respond in some way. “But I felt disempowered. How does a fiction writer address events that are so real?” she recalls thinking.

It was her husband, environmental artist Oliver Kellhammer, who suggested the solution: Why not, he said, “break the fictional container” of the novel and put her own identity into the book? Ozeki took his advice. She completely rewrote the story, discarding many of the fictional characters she had created and introducing two semi-autobiographical characters, “Ruth” and “Oliver.” In this way, she was able to incorporate her own reactions to and concerns about the disaster, while maintaining a fictional approach.

A Tale for the Time Being chronicles the life of
16-year-old Nao in Tokyo, who, in despair because
of her classmates’ bullying and her feelings of isola-
tion within her family, has decided to take her own
life. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to docu-
ment the life of her 104-year-old great-grandmother,
Jiko, a Buddhist nun. In the wake of the tsunami,
Nao’s diary washes ashore and is discovered by
Ruth, a novelist living on a remote Gulf Island off
the coast of British Columbia. As Ruth delves into
Nao’s story, she finds herself drawn into the young
girl’s past—and worried about her future.
The story unfolds in the dual voices of Nao and
Ruth, a tack that Ozeki also took in her highly
praised novel My Year of Meats. “This reflects my
own ethnic makeup,” Ozeki says, referring to her
Japanese father and American mother. “The two
sides of my ancestry have always been in communi-
cation with one another.” She laughs about the
hyphenated identities she continues to add:
American-Canadian, given that she was born and
raised in the U.S. but now spends most of her time
on British Columbia’s Cortes Island; and filmmaker-
author, as she started as an art director and docu-
mentary maker before turning to writing fiction.

Despite Nao’s and Ruth’s disparate life experiences, and the vast ocean that separates them, we sense a thread that links them—not surprising, given that Ozeki has practiced Buddhism for many years and is a Zen Buddhist priest. She says, “All of my books are united by the theme of interconnectedness, the Buddhist idea that although we experience life as separate individuals, we are all inextricably connected with one another.”

Ozeki took advantage of her Japanese connections to research the book. She traveled to Japan, where she still has family, and toured Buddhist temples to capture how Jiko would have lived and the Buddhist practices she would have followed. Ozeki also visited “maid cafés,” where waitresses dress in maid costumes and entertain mostly male customers; Nao spends her time in a maid café, writing her diary.

A Tale for the Time Being has resonated with readers worldwide. Ozeki recounts that when she first heard that it had been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, she didn’t believe it. “I saw one morning that my email inbox was full. In the first message, a friend congratulated me. ‘For what?’ I thought, thinking there must be some mistake. Then I scrolled down and saw more notes of congratulation—and realized that it was true. What an honor.”

Ozeki, who moved to Cortes Island in 1997, also captures the essence of Northwest life in her book: the clouds and storms; the ever-encroaching forest; the squawking, busybody ravens; the range of humanity, from blissed-out old hippies to the dump manager who translates poetry on the side.

Living on the edge of North America seems to suit Ruth Ozeki.

Readers can only eagerly await her next “message in a bottle.” C

Ellen Schwartz is the author of 16 books for
children and teens. She lives in Burnaby,
British Columbia. F R A
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Ruth Ozeki

book: the clouds and storms; the ever-encroaching the dump manager who translates poetry

Pennie Clark Ianniciello,

Costco book buyer book pick

Signed book gıveaway

COSTCO HAS 50 signed copies of Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being to give away. To enter, just go to: www.costcoconnectionbookgiveaway.com.

NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is sponsored by Penguin Group, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received before the May issue is available online, which will happen around April 25. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before May 1, 2014. The value of the prize is $16. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or Penguin Group and their families are not eligible.

THIS NOVEL HAS a lovely way of showing how none of us operate in a bubble.

This month’s book buyer’s pick, Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, is Ozeki’s response to the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011.

Those of us who live in the Paci;c Northwest heard many reports about debris from that tragedy washing up on our shores, thousands of miles away.

In the novel, Ruth ;nds a Hello Kitty lunchbox that contains the diary of a Japanese teenager, Nao.

A lonely and bullied teenager, Nao decides the only true escape is suicide. But before she acts on that impulse, she wants to write down the story of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun. As Ruth is pulled into Nao’s words, readers are moved effortlessly between the two timelines.