How to Be an American Housewife

You must work as hard as you can to prove yourself more than equal - the most polite, the best worker, and adept English learner, the most well-turned-out Housewife your husband could ever ask for. This is your duty, to both your home country and to your new one.
- From the chapter 'Turning American,' How to Be an American Housewife

When Shoko decided to marry an American GI and leave Japan, she had her parents' blessing, her brother's scorn, and a gift from her betrothed-a book on How to Be an American Housewife.

As she crossed the ocean to America, Shoko also brought with her a secret she would need to keep her entire life . . .

Half a century later, Shoko's plans to finally return to Japan and reconcile with her brother are derailed by illness. Instead, she sends her grown American daughter, Sue, a divorced single mother with a teenage daughter of her own. As Sue and Helena take in Japan, with all its beauty and contradictions, they also discover another side to Shoko, and return to America irrevocably touched, irrevocably changed.

At heart a mother-daughter story, How to Be an American Housewife explores the intricacies of assimilation, the price of secrets, and the enduring, healing power of familial love.

'How to Be an American Housewife will charm and uplift you.'
- IRIS RAINER DART, author of Beaches

'A triumphant debut novel . . . Shoko's voice is one of a kind, yet as familiar as advice from your own mother. Her unforgettable story of triumph, tragedy, disappointment, and joy will stay with me.'
- SUSAN WIGGS, author of The Summer Hideaway