Book Review: "Mongrel" by Hanako Footman

“She wasn't yellow. She was golden.”

- Mongrel by Hanako Footman

I am going to be perfectly honest with you when I say this: as I write this it is early some morning, so early the world is still asleep. I have found this for a good price on my Kindle and yet, I am stunned by the fact I have never heard of neither book nor author in my life. This book was so intriguing that I was genuinely surprised that this author had never passed my radar. Let's just say that if you like to read about many different characters at a time of great change in their lives with the addition of it being Japanese Contemporary Fiction - then this book is clearly for you.

Meiko (known as Mei) has a best friend called Fran and they are practically inseperable. That is until they get a bit older and Fran begins dying her hair a lighter blonde and getting Meiko to do things that she would not necessarily have done without a push. Fran sort of turns into this on-again-off-again friend who spends time with Meiko at parties, but seems distant from her in the school hallways. Ultimately, the whole thing comes crashing down when Meiko is assaulted at one of these parties and thus begins a story of generational trauma, all involving coercive control.

Whilst Mei lives in Surrey, England and struggles to fit in due to her Japanese heritage we are presented with another culture shock in a different timeline. Yuki travels to England to be a concert violinist and yet, her dreams are weighed down by a man who won't take no for an answer. Yuki initially believes that she loves this man but as the story goes on, she realises that this is not the case at all. She doesn't love him but he clearly has no real love for her either. When she is with child, he practically ignores her. When both of her children are born, she tries to leave to go back to Japan, and that is when all hell breaks loose.

As we witness the broken timeline of Yuki in bits and pieces, we are thrust into another timeline in a different age. Haruka is young when her mother dies and she must experience the entire weight of it on her shoulders. No more going to the bath-house, no more cuddles and no more dreaming, Haruka internalises her grief so much that she eventually runs away from home, fleeing a life of sadness containing so many different images and memories of her mother. Eventually, she comes into contact with someone she has never met but desperately needs to meet - her name is Meiko.

Hanako Footman creates a wonderful work of women's fiction blended in with themes relating to the LGBT community. I loved the way that the author dealt with the traumas encountered by people who are still trying to discover who they are. Done with incredible amounts of thought and precision, the author demonstrates that they are knowledgeable in the ways of the mind to protect itself against harm once harm has come to it once before. The continuous grief and trauma is a testament to that. For example: the reason why Haruka runs away from home is because so much of it reminds her of her mother. The dichotomy between the tone of when her mother was alive and now that she is dead is very clear to the reader and so, must be even clearer to Haruka.

There is something about the intensity of this book that causes the heart pain. If I'm going to be perfectly honest with my readers I have to say that I stayed up until 3am, knowing full well I had to be up at 6:30am for work the next day, reading this book. I felt like I was wired by the energy of heartbreak and disaster and yet, I yearned to know whether these women found themselves. This book is coated in a deeply disturbing tragedy relating to motherhood and creates a bond with the reader, one which every reader is scared of: losing their mother. It is fantastic and yet, really upsetting.

All in all, I thought that this book was a perfect example of what great contemporary literature should look like. It is a blend of cultures, sexualities, stories and backgrounds to create a narrative of lives bursting at the seams. Devastating and shocking, the author clearly has a talent for relaying this narrative to a reader who can only imagine what this feels like.