Review by Susan Blumberg-Kason
Sometimes it takes near-death experiences for people to really start living. In Sharon White’s latest novel, Minato Sketches, Gigi, the protagonist, suffers a stroke and leaves her husband and grown sons behind when she moves to Tokyo to teach for a summer. Minato is the area in Tokyo where Gigi lives and the sketches in the title refer to both Gigi’s profession as an art historian as well as the very short chapters that comprise this novel.
White is a professor emerita from Temple University and an award-winning author of several genres. She won an AWP award in creative nonfiction for Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia. Her book Boiling Lake (On Voyage) won the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction. Minato Sketches won the Rosemary Daniell Fiction Prize from Minerva Rising Press.
So it’s no wonder that while most of her chapters in Minato Sketches consist of only a page or two, her talent for storytelling allows these chapters to flow well together, forming an engaging story of renewal. Apart from Gigi’s inspirational adventure in Tokyo, which forms the narrative arc of the novel, the descriptions of place add a sensory delight to a character-driven story.
There was so much food in this city. The train stations were full of everything delicious, candies in their own silver boxes, green tea cakes cut into tiny squares. Or noodles in stalls all over the older section of the city. A famous noodle maker whacking the dough against a table, smacking the long strings until they separated magically into many strands. Children eating fluted cones of ice cream at the top of hills. Young couples huddled over pastries at the cafes, more French than cafes ever were in Paris. Fat lemons in the market along with jugs of sake and oil.
Gigi develops a friendship with Richard, another teacher at her school who reminds her of the musician Peter Frampton. He becomes one of her closest friends in Japan and is interested in the ramifications of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster on the wild boar population in that area. Wild boars figure almost as much in the story as do the human characters. Gigi finds solace in stories about these boars when she learns that in Japan they symbolize everything from fertility to courage to prosperity. “Could she have the power of the boar to shake off the terrors of the last few years?” she wonders.
Ultimately Gigi finds healing through the people she meets—including her students—halfway around the world from her husband and sons. Readers who have lived abroad will appreciate White’s ability to write about the emotions common with the trepidation of moving to a new place and the thrilling discovery of new cultures. For those who have not lived in another country, Minato Sketches will provide a glimpse into another culture and setting, both vivid and memorable.
Minato Sketches by Sharon White
Minerva Rising Press, 2025, $22.95
978-1-950811-23-6
Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of a memoir and two biographies, with a third on the way. She also co-edited an anthology of noir stories set in Hong Kong and is a regular contributor to Asian Review of Books, World Literature Today, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and the Jewish Book Council.