One Hundred and One Ways

by Mako Yoshikawa

"I may have spent most of my life in New Jersey, but the blood of a geisha courses through me yet." So writes Mako Yoshikawa in this extraordinary debut novel which is sure to evoke comparisons to the works of Amy Tan and Alice Walker. One Hundred and One Ways is the story of a woman who, finding herself torn between two men and two cultures, turns for answers to an unknown Japanese grandmother, once a famous geisha.

If Kiki Takehashi's life is dramatically different from the one lived by her reserved Japanese-American mother, it is light-years away from that of her grandmother, whom she knows only through old family stories. Kiki has recently become engaged to Eric, a handsome, successful lawyer in New York City. But at the same time she is haunted--quite literally--by the memory of her friend Phillip, killed the previous year in a mountaineering accident.

As Kiki herself is well aware, her incessant mourning for Phillip--her love of a ghost--is endangering her chance at real-life happiness with Eric. Yet her relationship with Eric is also complicated by her fear that he is attracted to her only because of his erotic fascination with Asian women.

Kiki has never so much as met her grandmother, the woman for whom she is named. Still, thoroughly American though she is, she feels a secret kinship with the nearly legendary Yukiko, whose impoverished family sold her as a young girl to a geisha house. Kiki is swept up by the story of this strong, proud, passionate woman who, against all odds, in a time and place far different from her own, found the love that has so far eluded the rest of the Takehashi women.

For years, Kiki has collected questions to ask her grandmother--queries on subjects ranging from love, loss, and family to the myth of exoticism which hangs over Asian-American women and geishas alike. In the wake of Phillip's return as a ghost, Kiki awaits Yukiko's imminent visit to America with a renewed eagerness, trusting that this unknown woman will provide answers to the mysteries of her past and guide her on her way into the future.

Lyrical, haunting, and stunningly evocative, One Hundred and One Ways introduces a powerful and exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Asia, Contemporary, American, Literature

278 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Mako Yoshikawa is the author of the novels Once Removed and One Hundred and One Ways. Her essays have been published in LitHub, Harvard Review, Southern Indiana Review, Missouri Review, and Best American Essays, among other places. She is a professor of creative writing and directs the MFA program at Emerson College. She lives in Boston and Baltimore.

Reviews

[Maitreyi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that surprised me. The prose is beautiful and you won't be able to keep it down.

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful story interweaving her grandmothers life in war torn Japan

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

After studying this book for a personal paper in one of my english classes, I was somewhat disappointed. There isnt much to write about. Pretty prose only gets you so far. If I wanted pretty prose I would read edgar allen poe who can describe the hell out of life. I came to the book for the relationships and the culture. I was disappointed by the culture due to the main character not having any, and the book mostly mentioned culture through geishas. If we went to china and looked at their culture of the brothels before anything else, I would be insulted. She did exactly that with the geishas, glorifying sexualitily with no meaning. Frankly, it put me off.So, I was not impressed with that part of the story. The worst part was the relationships. The love story of Phillip was contrived to be a sad background for the main character and Eric was manipulative and unfeeling. He disguised it well because of how much he liked banging her, and maybe in the end he somewhat loved her, but his words about how he regarded her betrayed the physical actions. The best part of this book was her Mom. She was a rich character with the troubles and culture I was expecting to see in this novel. It was too bad that she was not fleshed out by the author.

[Shawna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite novels. A very unique story of a Japanese-American woman haunted by a former lover and by the legacy of her mother and her grandmother, who was a famous geisha. Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, yet intertwined with a haunting love story, One Hundred and One Ways is a beautiful read.

[Lisa Plemper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insgesamt bin ich leider ziemlich enttäuscht.

Der Aufbau des Buches ist in zwei Erzählstränge unterteilt. Einmal geht es um Yukiko (Kiki), welche ihren Freund Phillip verliert. Im Vordergrund steht die Trauer und eine neue Beziehung der Protagonistin. Zudem erhält man Einblicke in das Leben der Großmutter von Kiki ebenfalls Yukiko, welche als Geisha in Japan lebte. Immer wieder werden diese zwei Stränge ohne logische Trennung durchmischt. Dies empfand ich als sehr anstrengend und leider konnte ich mich deshalb nicht richtig auf das Buch einlassen.

Zu Kiki konnte ich durch den sprunghaften Schreibstil keine Bindung aufbauen. Auch haben mir bei ihr Facetten gefehlt. Ihre Trauer um Phillip wirkt eindimensional und ab der Hälfte des Buches, konnte ich in Kikis Charakter nichts Neues mehr entdecken. Die Entwicklung ihrer Geschichte war vorhersehbar und hat mich leider gar nicht gepackt.

Yukikos Leben als Geisha war sehr interessant und ich habe die Einblicke gerne gelesen. Dennoch blieb sie so unscharf skizziert, dass ich bis zum Ende kein richtiges Bild von ihr hatte.

Die Geschichten der zwei Frauen wurden so konfus miteinander verknüpft, dass eine wahnsinnige Distanz zueinander entstand. Und das, obwohl Kiki in fiktiven Gesprächen mit Yukiko ihre Trauer verarbeitet.

Die Themen an sich haben meiner Meinung nach riesen Potential, Feminismus, Rassismus, Tod und Trauer, Fremd- und Selbstbestimmtheit, Kulturen und zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen.

Vielleicht ist es für Leser:innen geeignet die auf der Suche nach einer etwas anderen Liebesgeschichte sind.

[Jenny Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful debut novel that resonates with the ancient world of Japanese geishas through the protagonist's grandmother and sits incongruously alonside life in modern New York..

Kiki has lived in the USA all her life and has been accumulating questions to ask her Japanese grandmother – her Obaasama – when she finally comes to visit. She is struggling to recover after losing Philip, her true soul mate. A lover of travel and adventure, he was killed on a trek in Nepal but now he literally haunts her apartment, saying nothing. His presence swings between comforting and unnerving. Meanwhile, she has met Eric, but there are questions that require answers. Does he have an unhealthy fetish for Asian women and is she stuck in a cycle of self-sabotaging any relationship in the future since she cannot seem to let Philip go?

Everything Kiki knows about her grandmother comes from stories her own mother has told her. The perks as well as the shame of being a geisha; lost love; disappointment; loneliness; fresh opportunities, are all considered.

This novel moves very slowly – sometimes painfully so – because it unwraps the layers of story piece by piece. At no point does it take the moral high ground, indeed statements are made quite clinically, some of which took me by surprise. Fascinating in its style, reach and rhythm, the writing is sometimes lyrical and sometimes brutal.

I didn't choose this book; it was on the coffee table where I've been staying and is quite different from my usual choice which proved quite refreshing.

[Patricia De Boer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Kiki, full named Yukiko, named after her Japanese grandmother.
Kiki struggles with the death of her beloved Philip, and his ghost that can't let her go.
Despite her newfound relationship with her boyfriend Eric, who has to compete with a dead man. That affects their relationship because Kiki can't let go of Philip.

Kiki shares her struggles with her grandmother Yukiko, who, like Kiki, has struggled with love too. She has been a famous geisha in Tokyo.
Kiki is looking forward to meeting this woman she has never met and who she would love to talk to about her love life.

The book mainly tells the story of Kiki, but also that of her mother and the life of her grandmother.
It is a beautiful love epic in which the characters of the book are beautifully described.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kiki Takehashi was named after her grandmother, a former geisha. Kiki is an English grad student at Columbia, engaged to Eric, a lawyer. But she's still mourning the loss of Philip, who died in Nepal and is now haunting Kiki's apartment.

As she awaits meeting her grandmother for the first time, Kiki thinks about all the things she wants to talk to her about: Yukiko's life as a geisha; how she gave it up for love; Kiki's mother's rebellion and her leaving her family for love--a love that failed. And Kiki's own loves, good and bad.

She frees herself from Philip but must lose Eric in the process.

[Rorhy · Rating 3 out of 5]

So asa man ko magsugod sa akong kasungot ni Kiki aka Yukiko leche ha. I know technically lovely ang prose and the way 3 generations of women are interwoven in the present plot pero Kiki paled in comparison or idk ako lang ba nakulangan sa iyang kabugok Princeton grad man unta. Leche maypa si Russia na character B raman unta mas naa pay form!!!!!
Pero mao sad lgi getsss Kiii magaga sad ka sa gugma ersss, labi na crush pjud nmo si Hamlet and burikaton sad ka hahaha.
Ambot ba!!! She tried. Thanks for trying. Pero sa ka tryin hard nya mu level ganing sa iyang wowa ug ams murag wala na syai agi. Boshet kayo. Ga maoy k gurL dmo mag kita sa imong wowa, pag byahe bogo.

[Jashvina Shah · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were parts about this I liked and parts I didn’t. I liked the stories of her grandmother and how she used it to create a thread between the three generations of women despite the fact they’re all so obviously different and have grown up in incredibly different circumstances and aren’t close in that they don’t really hug and stuff. Some of the prose was clunky and I found myself getting bored midway through, and the ending was sweet but predictable.

[Lori Bamber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book .... mysterious, evocative; with a unique rhythm and tone.

I'm not giving it a five because I found one of the characters sadly undeveloped ... perhaps because he was, in fact, sadly undeveloped ... but it still rang false.

Otherwise, the hours I spent with this book were a gift.

[Sophia Tseng · Rating 3 out of 5]

An epic story of longing, and a bittersweet and easily consumed tale, populated by likeable characters and a fairy-tale setting. Yet there are so many generations and events that happen, each factor gets the most cursory of examinations. Would have loved if the backstories and decisions, possibly more of the history were explored in more detail.

[K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of grief and a story of the relationship between mothers and daughters. As a mother of a young adult, I appreciated the journey of the protagonist. It was a slow start and I almost gave up the book after the first two chapters but I’m glad I stayed with this. I would definitely read more by Yoshikawa.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Passionate, poetic and beautifully written.

[Lucas Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

magnificent

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

One hundred and one ways reminded me of weak Chinese tea.... I was waiting for it to blacken, thicken and and perk me up but it never quite did. Still, I love books about Asia and so I read .

"What a geisha is to Japan, a Japanese woman is to America." Kiki Takehashi, the narrator of Mako Yoshikawa's debut novel, One Hundred and One Ways, is all too familiar with what she calls the "Asian-woman fetish" of many American men--the assumption that Japanese women "possessed a set of keys that would unlock their bodies with a groan, one hundred and one times, one hundred and one ways". Despite her suspicions, however, Kiki keeps getting involved with Caucasian men--first Philip, who died the previous year, and now Eric, a Jewish lawyer who has asked her to marry him. Though Kiki accepts, she is still haunted--literally--by the ghost of her departed first love and by her own unresolved feelings about her parents' failed marriage.
As she works through these issues, Kiki is increasingly drawn to the story of her maternal grandmother, Yukiko, with whom she feels a strong bond though they have never met. As a young girl, Yukiko was sold by her family and trained to become a geisha. Her story becomes intertwined with that of her granddaughter's--giving both strength and unexpected guidance to Kiki when she must make a heart-wrenching decision. Indeed, the sections detailing Yukiko's life are among the strongest in Yoshikawa's controlled, occasionally stilted first novel. --Margaret Prior --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book most of the time. The story is told by a Japanese-American, Kiki, who loves, but shies away from, her heritage. Her grandmother was a peasant girl who was sold to a geisha house in pre-WWII Japan. She was a successful geisha. Kiki is named for her (Yukiko) and although they have never met, she talks to her grandmother as she tried to figure out her own life. Many of the short chapters end with Kiki asking her grandmother questions. This device is touching and beautifully done. There are many beautiful parts of the book that make it worth reading. My favorites are when Kiki describes scenes from her grandmother’s life – based on stories she has been told and on her own beliefs about being Japanese and being a geisha.

But, somehow the book does not totally succeed. Kiki comes across as fairly unstable and her relationships and reactions can seem stilted or contrived. The relationship with her mother is unconvincing. But the author can write lovely prose, and I will try her second novel, Once Removed.

[Hippiemouse420 · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I could, I would have given it 3.5 stars because I felt the story improved significantly during the last third of the book.

[ryo narasaki · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book took me years to read. a little too long-winded, prose a little too reminiscent of self-styled "trashy romances," needed some tightening. good images and characters but not as good as jhumpa lahiri, who does similar work thru namesake. pretty good analysis of fetishization, bringing it all back onto the self. (no one is not guilty of fetishization).

great character development but a little too gaudy and stereotypical for mother, russia, eric, even philip. if one must use stereotypes, one must humanize them - best is with grandmother and self.

great twist at the end reinforces homo-social female companionship theme, even homo-sexual.

believable japanese characters, though a little self-exotified.

horribly privileged analysis of race-class.

the questioning tactic gets a bit tired after the 8th usage.

ultimate verdict: not moving, but a beautiful love story.

[Melinda Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Japanese fiction can be a little strange. This was no exception. We are introduced to Phillip, naked and hanging upside down in the living room, long before we meet the real life lover of Kiki.

The book has a dreamy, bittersweet nostalgic feel to it, and for such a short book, it takes quite a while to finish.. The big pull of the book should have been the geisha grandmother, but she just hovers in the background, with questions posed to her that we never get answers to .

Being a book from the 90's I found the references to aids quite interesting. How many books do we read these days where the characters travel off to have a blood test to see if they have AIDS? I guess considering how "choose life" was drilled into everyone in the early nineties it's not surprising that a bit of that wore off and was transferred to fiction..

[Rich Gamble · Rating 3 out of 5]

I braced for the worst as Yoshikawa (lets face it this seems autobiographical) drops a real clunker of a sentence that somehow implies that her lover has an ‘intelligent’ penis on page 2! It does get better and I was more here for what promised to be a book exploring the yellow fever phenomenon of white men lusting after Asian women than perfect prose. The running narrative of the Geisha grandma gets in the way of this too much though and that part feels like lazy & speculative fiction writing. The story of narrators love life is interesting and a bit touching with plenty of quirky details which make the characters just endearing enough to get this over the line.

[Eunhye · Rating 5 out of 5]

art. upgraded/more contemporary version of the popular book : memoirs of geisha. basically a mixture of joy luck club + memoirs of geisha. it claims "What a geisha is to Japan, a Japanese woman is to America."-- scary comment, but helps understand what it is the perception of Japanese women is in America and how they view themselves because of the socital expectations.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into this story. I enjoyed the narrative about the grandmother the most. Kiki's story was frustrating. The whole ghost thing, while possibly a metaphor for many things about her relationship with Phillip, was just annoying. Eventually I just accepted the novel for what it was and it got better. The ending is more satisfying than I expected.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story about a girl who longs to see her grandmother and thinks of questions to ask her. the book is a good read. it's about a girl whose boyfriend dies and learns how to cope basically. if you like a read about a tragic romance and a girl who is Japanese, then this is a read you'll probably like.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of an Asian American woman haunted by her ex-lover’s ghost and her fear of finding a healthy relationship. She examines her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her current boyfriend. Good story

[caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps it's not a work of genius, but the story and writing are so haunting, so human-I"ve read it cover to cover more times than Catcher in the Rye. It has a power that creeps up on you.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books.

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

A novel aobut a young woman's relalationship with her mother, the geisha grandmother whom she never met and lost loves.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked this book except for the parts she is dealing with the ghost of her dead boyfriend.seemed kind of weird that it was so real.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a powerful story of a woman, her past and current loves and her parallels to her mother and grand mother