Acclaimed Author, John Burnham Schwartz, to Speak July 21
Best selling author and Nantucket summer resident John Burnham Schwartz tells the story of Japan’s Empress Michiko, the first commoner to marry into the Japanese Imperial family in his fourth book, The Commoner: A Novel. He will read from and discuss that work at the Nantucket Atheneum on Monday, July 21 at 8 p.m. in the Great Hall. Admission is $20.
Inspired by the dramatic real-life stories of the reigning empress and crown princess of Japan, the novel's narrator is Haruko, Empress of Japan who at the age of twenty-four, marries the Crown Prince, becoming the first non-aristocratic woman to enter the longest-running, most hermetically sealed-off, and mysterious monarchy in the world. Met with cruelty and suspicion by the Empress and her minions, controlled at every turn, Haruko suffers a nervous breakdown and loses her voice. Yet she recovers and perseveres, holding tight to the self that the imperial bureaucrats would see crushed. When, thirty years later—now Empress herself—she plays a crucial role in persuading another young woman—Keiko, a brilliant foreign servant who dreams of having a career—to accept the marriage proposal of Haruko's son, the Crown Prince, the consequences are tragic and dramatic.
The Washington Post calls this novel “mesmerizing, and the New York Times Book Review says it is “intensely moving and utterly convincing.”
Schwartz is the author of the novels Claire Marvel, Bicycle Days, and Reservation Road, which has been made into a film based on his screenplay, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Connelly. His work has been translated into twenty languages, and has appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker and The New York Times. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and their son.
Tickets are available at the Atheneum Box Office, 1 India Street or online at www.nantucketatheneum.org.
