One Morning Like a Bird

1940. Tokyo. Japan is
at war with China, and Yuji Takano is clinging to the life he has made
for himself as a young poet - the company of his friends, the monthly
meetings of the French Club at Monsieur Feneon's house, the days of
writing and contemplation made possible by an allowance from his father,
a professor at Tokyo's elite Imperial university...But the world is
closing in on Yuji. His father is disgraced, the allowance is scrapped,
and the threat of conscription is coming ever closer. And then there is
Monsieur Feneon's nineteen-year-old daughter Alissa, a girl with her own
very definite ideas of what she wants, and whose fate becomes
inextricably bound up with Yuji's. In hauntingly evocative prose, Andrew
Miller tells a timeless story about growing up and growing free of
self-delusions, about following the heart and making the right choices
in life. Vividly conveying its setting, he also draws a fascinating
portrait of a bygone Tokyo and of Japan at a critical juncture in its
history.