How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway

Sue and Helena meet their Japanese family, including the at-first-reluctant Taro, and see part of the country. When Shoko asks her to go to Japan in her place, Sue agrees. She is divorced after an early marriage, has a 12-year-old daughter, Helena, and is spinning her wheels in a boring job. Shoko longs to go to Japan to see her brother, but impending heart surgery prevents that.Shoko's daughter, Suiko or Sue, is the narrator in the second part of book. She reminisces about her youth (and secrets) in occupied Japan, meeting and marrying her husband Charlie, her subsequent estrangement from her brother Taro, as well as the challenges she faces fitting into American culture, being a military wife, and raising her two children. Dilloway incorporated some of the stories her mother told about her youth into this book.The first part of the book is narrated by Shoko. Dilloway's mother died when Dilloway was 20, and the book is dedicated to her. Shoko and Dilloway's mother both married American servicemen and moved to the United States, both had daughters in their early 40s, and both had an enlarged heart. Like Shoko Morgan, one of two narrators in How to Be an American Housewife, Dilloway's mother is Japanese and grew up in World War II-era Japan.

'Write what you know' is common advice to author-wanna-bes, and first-time novelist Margaret Dilloway has taken this advice to heart.

How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway