Five Years on a Rock (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780824816773)

Milton Murayama returns to the places and people of his earlier fiction - to the sugar plantation company towns and sleepy villages of Maui, and to the resilient Oyama family. Five Years on a Rock is the story of Sawa Oyama, the mother who plays a major role in All I Asking for Is My Body. In a spirited voice full of courage and wit, Sawa tells of her arrival in Hawaii in 1915 as a seventeen-year-old picture bride. But her hope of returning to Japan after five years on a rock wanes as the five years stretch to twenty, during which six children are born, her husband's fishing business succeeds then fails, and the family debt grows. Overworked and sick with worry, Sawa loses all her teeth and falls deathly ill, the victim, she believes, of someone else's bachi (divine retribution). She recovers, however, when an aunt dies in her stead, and she returns to her family with renewed vigor and a new set of teeth.

Author: Milton Murayama
ISBN-10: 0824816773
ISBN-13: 9780824816773
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Language: English
Published: 10/01/1994
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.99h x 6.04w x 0.42d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 12/01/1994 pg. 655
Kirkus Reviews 10/01/1994 pg. 1298