The Great Group Reads from the Women’s National Book Association has just selected “All Sorrows Can Be Borne” as one of the top 20 books to be selected for book clubs for 2021 out of a field of 200 books!
Latest Reviews
October 25, 2021
"Stephens's debut fiction brings to life the heart-wrenching yet beautiful story of a woman growing up and living in Japan through the often horrific era of the 1940s through the 1960s. Inspired by the true story of her husband’s family, Stephens follows Noriko through her childhood, living through the bombing of Hiroshima, and as a young adult with dreams of going to the Takarazuka Theater Academy. When life doesn’t turn out the way she planned, Noriko finds a different happiness, marrying Ichiro, a man she’s deeply in love with, and becoming pregnant with their son, Hisashi, on their honeymoon. While still pregnant, they’re given the devastating news that Ichiro has tuberculosis, and their family’s future becomes desperately insecure.
Through every happy and excruciatingly painful moment, Stephens evokes the emotions of each character with great clarity and power, ensuring readers will feel as though they were experiencing the story themselves. At times almost unbearably intimate, All Sorrows Can Be Borne offers raw, painful insight into the ways that so much of everyday Japanese life in the period was shaped by income level or by being a woman: Noriko must go along with her husband’s plan to send their son to Ichiro’s sister and husband in America to raise him as their own, no matter how devastating the decision, to ensure their son will still have the future they can’t provide.
The novel’s structure reveals that decision early and then doubles back, through Noriko’s life, to explain it. Stephens contextualizes her characters and their choices with references to historical people and events, from Japan and the U.S., illuminating the era and this couple’s heartbreaking lack of freedom—especially Noriko’s. Stephens’s descriptions of the horrors Noriko witnessed in Hiroshima and her fears in later life of the long-term health effects are unforgettable. This moving saga will stun and enthrall readers.
Takeaway: Based on real events, a heartbreaking novel of the steps that lead a mother in 1960’s Japan to give up her son.
Great for fans of: Vanessa Springora’s Consent, Esther Safran Foer’s I Want You To Know We’re Still Here."
An eloquent and engaging novel that was inspired by true events and deftly written with a compelling sensitivity, All Sorrows Can Be Borne explores how families are shaped by political and economic circumstances, tremendous loss and ultimately forgiveness. One of those masterpiece works of literary
Midwest Book Review
“An engrossing read, which is likely to catch the eye of a movie producer or director. Highly recommended.”
Historical Novel Society
October 12, 2021
"Stephens’ sprawling novel is loaded with details about Japanese culture, postwar history, and the Tenrikyo religion in particular. It also features some
wonderful lines that give readers keen insight into Noriko’s psyche: “Japanese people believe that children up to the age of five can communicate with angels, but can they also communicate with the dead?” she wonders to herself, not long before her son is to depart. The pace of the storytelling is quite leisurely, though, as it methodically moves along a relatively flat story arc. Still, the characters’ perseverance through continual struggle makes for a compelling story of survival of life’s many trials and of one person’s drive to stay true to oneself."