\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp\u003eA young mother fights impossible odds to be reunited with her child in this acutely insightful first novel about an intercultural marriage gone terribly wrong.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJill Parker is an American painter living in Japan. Far from the trendy \u003cI\u003egaijin\u003c/I\u003e neighborhoods of downtown Tokyo, she\u0026rsquo;s settled in a remote seaside village where she makes ends meet as a bar hostess. Her world appears to open when she meets Yusuke, a savvy and sensitive art gallery owner who believes in her talent. But their love affair, and subsequent marriage, is doomed to a life of domestic hell, for Yusuke is the \u003cI\u003echonan\u003c/I\u003e, the eldest son, who assumes the role of rigid patriarch in his traditional family while Jill\u0026rsquo;s duty is that of a servile Japanese wife. A daily battle of wills ensues as Jill resists instruction in the proper womanly arts. Even the long-anticipated birth of a son, Kei, fails to unite them. Divorce is the only way out, but in Japan a foreigner has no rights to custody, and Jill must choose between freedom and abandoning her child.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTold with tenderness, humor, and an insider\u0026rsquo;s knowledge of contemporary Japan, \u003cI\u003eLosing Kei\u003c/I\u003e is the debut novel of an exceptional expatriate voice.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eSuzanne Kamata\u003c/b\u003e's work has appeared in over one hundred publications. She is the editor of \u003cI\u003eThe Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan\u003c/I\u003e and a forthcoming anthology from Beacon Press on parenting children with disabilities. A five-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, she has twice won the Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e
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