Very disturbing book in it's honesty about the bomb's effect on Hiroshima and the personal tragedies it brought about. ( )

Shaena Lam
ber’s Radiance is a book from back in 2007, and I think I probably bought it on the recommendation of the late Kevin from Canada, a friend and blogger sorely missed. It’s a thought-provoking novel, the kind I really like.

The novel traces the story of Keiko, a ‘Hiroshima Maiden’ and her ‘house mother’ Daisy Lawrence, but it’s also a devastating exposé of the way ordinary people are used to serve political purposes, no matter the pain it causes. The Hiroshima Maidens were, in real life, Japanese girls with facial disfigurements caused by the atom bomb, who were brought to America for facial surgery to restore their appearance. Keiko stays with Daisy and her husband Walter, an ‘all-American family’ living in the quiet anonymity of the suburbs – while the Hiroshima Project committee organises the speaking tour that Keiko will undertake after her surgery as a poster girl for the nuclear disarmament movement. This is the period between the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb and also the era of the Cold War: peace activists were urging an international ban on the development of nuclear weapons. But as Daisy soon finds out, Keiko’s calm, polite mask conceals a young woman too traumatised by survivor guilt to share the ambiguous truth of her memories.

Radiance is also a novel about national guilt.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/12/07/radiance-by-shaena-lambert/ ( )

There was a lot of hype around this book when it was first out; I was pleased to find that it was warranted. American Daisy is playing house mother to Keiko, a scarred survivor of Hiroshima. Keiko has come to America to have her scar removed; in return, she will become a spokesperson for the horrors of the atomic bomb. But Keiko proves difficult to know, and is reticent about her experiences. Daisy, who is supposed to draw her out, finds herself strangely protective of Keiko. I found Radiance surprising and hard to put down. ( )