R.A. Sasaki is a third-generation San Franciscan. She attended the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, has a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Winner of the 1983 American Japanese National Literary Award, she has had stories published in the Short Story Review and Making Waves: An Anthology of Writing by Asian-American Women . The Loom and Other Stories is her first published collection. She currently lives in Berkeley, California. The nine short stories in this collection reveal a moving portrait of three generations of Japanese-Americans trying to fit themselves into the fabric of American society. The author writes: "I wandered ghostlike amidst the mainstream of America, treading unaware of the cultural amnesia inflicted on my parents' generation by the internment and the atomic bomb." Poignant, heart-breaking, and often funny, these tales chronicle the pains and hopes of family members reaching out in individual ways to understand themselves, their families, and their community. "Ruth Sasaki writes with great self-knowledge, with a sensitivity born of examined experience, and with a wonderfully humorous insight of the American ethnic experience."— Gus Lee, author of China Boy "Sasaki's stories mark an impressive debut."— Newsday "Quiet, elegiac writing that movingly celebrates the immigrant rite of passage—along with all its implicit heartaches and triumphs."— Kirkus Reviews "Sasaki writes with great sensitivity, intelligence, subtlety and humor."— Traise Yamamoto, Multicultural Review "Nine loosely connected tales weave the experiences of three generations of Japanese-Americans in San Francisco into a subtle, appealing tapestry . . . So sure is the author's touch that a few deft strokes serve to define a character, a moment, the tenor of a life. Sasaki's understated, cerebral prose speaks to the heart."— Publishers Weekly Table of Contents Another Writer's Beginnings Ohaka-mairi The Loom Independence First Love American Fish Wild Mushrooms Driving to Colma Seattle A nice addition to the growing body of Asian American literature, this is a loosely related collection of short stories of Japanese American life under the twin shadows of the internment and the atomic bomb. The titular story traces the emotional burrowing in of a nisei (second-generation Japanese American) woman after the family's pursuit of the American dream is cruelly dashed by the internment. The rest of the stories deal with such diverse topics as coping with death in the family, the doomed relationship between a sansei (third-generation Japanese American) girl and an FOB fresh-off-the-boat boy, the longing for a peaceful life before the bombing in Hiroshima, and the inevitable though sad split of Japanese American families as different generations go their own ways. All the stories are sensitive and often poignant recollections of life with "the bond of obligation, of suffering, of love." Highly recommended. - Cherry Wenying Li, Dickinson Coll. Lib., Carlisle, Pa. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. An accomplished first collection by a third-generation San Franciscan. The stories here, most set in California, reflect Sasaki's Japanese-American background in a low-key but poignant way--not so much as a clash of contrasts but as a rivalry of claims: the customs, the foods, even the idioms of the past that still tug, even at a generation who have been spared the earlier prejudices and wartime hostilities. Though the pieces are separate, most are about the Terasaki family. In ``Ohaka-Mairi,'' the family goes to the cemetery to pay respect to the dead, and the narrator recalls her father's bitterness at the death of her elder sister in a climbing accident. Their mother is the central character in the title story: ``It was when Cathy died that the other Terasaki sisters began to think that something was wrong with their mother.'' She had graduated from the University of California in the 30's despite the ever-present prejudice, but had then been interned with her parents in one of the camps. This internment and growing deafness further accelerated her mother's isolation. But a weaving loom is her salvation--soon ``she sat, a woman bent over a loom, weaving the diverse threads of life into one miraculous, mystical fabric with timeless care.'' Other notables are: ``First Love,'' in which a bookish girl falls for a Japanese-born boy who's ``driven to maintain an illusion''; and ``Driving to Colma,'' in which the dying father of the family takes an unexpected detour to the see the ocean ``lit for sunset.'' Quiet, elegiac writing that movingly celebrates the immigrant rite of passage--along with all its implicit heartaches and triumphs. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. “Nine loosely connected tales weave the experiences of three generations of Japanese-Americans in San Francisco into a