Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye: A Journey

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Description

“Read it. You are going to be uplifted.”―Ruth Ozeki, Zen priest, creator of A Tale for the Time Being

Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s circle of relatives owns a Buddhist temple 25 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In March 2011, after the earthquake and tsunami, radiation levels prohibited the burial of her Japanese grandfather’s bones. As Japan mourned thousands of people lost in the disaster, Mockett also grieved for her American father, who had died rapidly.

Seeking consolation, Mockett is guided by a colorful cast of Zen priests and atypical Japanese who perform rituals that disturb, haunt, and in spite of everything uplift her. Her journey leads her into the radiation zone in an intricate white hazmat suit; to Eiheiji, a school for Zen Buddhist monks; on a talk over with to a Crab Lady and Fuzzy-Headed Priest’s temple on Mount Doom; and into the “thick dark” of the subterranean labyrinth under Kiyomizu temple, among other twists and turns. From the ecstasy of a cherry blossom festival in the radiation zone to the ghosts inhabiting chopsticks, Mockett writes of both the earthly and the sublime with peculiar sensitivity. Her unpretentious and engaging voice makes her the type of companion a reader wants to stick with wherever she goes, even into the heart of grief itself.

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