Woman Running in the Mountains by Yūko Tsushima (tr. Geraldine Harcourt)

The critically acclaimed Japanese author Yūko Tsushima is fast becoming a favourite of mine. As a single mother, writing at a time when few Japanese women were raising their children alone, Tsushima took great care in exploring the challenges of single motherhood in her work, frequently featuring young women struggling to take control of their lives in the face of societal and familial pressures to conform. It’s a topic that unites her most affecting books – the contemplative Territory of Light (1979) and the equally impressive Woman Running in the Mountains, first published in serialised form in 1980. This striking, beautifully written novel, in which brief eruptions of joy burst through the painful burdens of single motherhood, feels like a near certainty for my end-of-year highlights, delving deep into the central character’s world in a highly compelling way.

Tsushima’s protagonist is Takiko, a twenty-one-year-old unmarried woman living at home with her conservative parents and younger brother, Atsushi. Takiko has fallen pregnant from an emotionless one-night stand with an older married man she met through her office job. They were simply work colleagues who connected briefly, only to separate again once the perfunctory act was complete.

At first, Takiko doesn’t realise that the changes happening to her body are due to pregnancy; and even when the reality of the situation finally becomes apparent, she cannot think about the consequences, allowing nature to take its course with minimal engagement. Moreover, there are no attempts to contact the baby’s father, Hiroshi. Instead, Takiko prefers to have no connection with him going forward.

Once discovered, the pregnancy is a great source of shame to Takiko’s parents, particularly the mother, who urges Takiko to seek an abortion, even though it’s too late for this to be conducted. (As noted in the book, only 0.8% of children born in Japan were effectively classed as illegitimate at this time, attracting a deeply ingrained mark of social stigma that carried through into adulthood.)  

Moreover, Takiko must put up with a tirade of abuse at home, from her mother’s persistent nagging about the disgrace associated with single motherhood and its impact on Takiko’s life to her father’s physical attacks, frequently fuelled by alcohol and rages against his own shortcomings. (An earlier accident has left the father with a disability, pushing the burden of financial support onto Takiko and her mother – a seamstress who works all hours simply to cover the family’s costs.) 

Her mother at once launched into an endless stream of angry questions, demanding to know why hadn’t she gotten an abortion, how had it happened, who was the man, did she want his child because she loved him, was he a married man, did he know, did she plan to bring it up herself, did she think she knew how, was she doing this to get back at her parents, did she have such a grudge against her father, did she realize what this would do to her life, and just what was the big idea? (p. 24)

Nevertheless, Takiko is not ashamed of her situation. In fact, the prospect of motherhood seems entirely natural to her, signalling a determination to forge her own path in life, irrespective of the challenges this will undoubtedly present. 

In essence, the novel follows the first year in the life of Akira, Takiko’s baby boy, opening with Takiko making the arduous journey to the municipal maternity hospital in Tokyo, a trip she is determined to make on her own. We follow Takiko as she goes through labour and gives birth, learns to feed and look after Akira, and observes the other mothers from a safe distance. In truth, she would rather stay in hospital than return to her parents’ home, where baby Akira will almost certainly exacerbate the tensions in her family.

She had given birth to a baby that no one had wanted her to have, a birth to which she alone had consented. Regrets were not permitted. (p. 181)

Tsushima excels at capturing the rhythms, routines and emotions of single parenthood as Takiko must learn to look after her baby largely on her own. We see her searching for a place at a series of day-care centres, virtually all fully booked for months in advance, much to Takiko’s dismay. Finally, a space becomes available at a small private nursery, enabling Takiko to look for work, although her incomings barely cover the childcare costs. We follow her progress through a series of poorly paid, unfulfilling jobs, ill-suited to her childcare commitments and her instinctive interests/skills. Meanwhile, the barrage of verbal abuse continues – much of it from Takiko’s mother as she urges her daughter to give Akira up for adoption, easing the financial and emotional burden on the family before they sink. Tsushima also highlights some of the hypocrisy inherent in this society as Takiko’s mother seems happy to refer to herself as ‘Grandma’ despite having urged her daughter to terminate the pregnancy on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, Takiko will not allow these pressures to derail her. After all, Akira is just like any other baby at heart, whatever conventional society may think.

This was all that Takiko plus Akira amounted to, yet they clearly weren’t regarded as anything so simple. She sensed that people seemed afraid of them. But what on earth was there about her and Akira that could make people wary? (p. 132)

Psychologically, Takiko experiences the whole gamut of emotions, encompassing uncertainty, concern, tension, fear, bewilderment, longing, hope, love (for Akira) and brief bursts of happiness and joy. Some of the most rewarding aspects of this deeply affecting novel stem from her profound appreciation of beauty. At the most unexpected moments, she finds solace and pleasure in images of the natural world, from the shimmering colours of a midsummer morning to the play of light on a tree’s leaves as they flutter in the wind.

Early every afternoon the tree began to shine. A glittering white light danced and scattered as its leaves stirred in the wind. The view bordered by the square window frame gave a deceptive impression of nearness, like a mirage. In the evening the tree would bask in the setting sun, reaching the height of its brilliance. (p. 15)

While the novel is mostly written in a realist style, Tsushima accentuates Takiko’s longing for a world beyond the peripheries of society through brief, dreamlike sequences, tapping into a desire for emergence, liberation and freedom of movement. It’s a freedom Takiko has sensed through listening to stories, observing other people’s lives and drawing on her own imagination. These yearnings are portrayed through dreams of the mountains and the surrounding area, a place that has captured Takiko’s imagination from stories of her mother’s childhood – a landscape rich with lush, rolling fields, glittering white ice and a liquid amethyst sea, swiftly moving as it flows. Moreover, entwined with this desire for liberation is a deep yearning for connection and emotional fulfilment, aspects sorely lacking from Takiko’s life in the early months of motherhood.

The world is below is clearly visible from the mountain slope, stretching away beyond the rustling vine leaves. All too clearly and minutely visible. The world where people live. Countless grains of light glitter as if every surface had been sprinkled with quartz dust. There are houses, roads, adults, children down there. They look like toys, but they aren’t toys at all. A world that appears even more distant than the blue peaks floating on the skyline. But it is this world that she wants more than anything to watch, when she could look away and spare herself this slowly welling sadness. When she needn’t know how alone she is. (p. 247)

There are hints that this fulfilling connection may finally happen when Takiko finds a job at the Misawa Gardens, helping to tend plants supplied to restaurants and similar businesses. There she meets an older married man, Kambayashi, whose bond with his son – a boy with significant learning difficulties – touches her deeply. In a way, Takiko and Kambayashi are kindred spirits – both share a love of plants and the natural world, and both are raising socially disadvantaged children, albeit with different challenges. It would be unfair of me to reveal how this relationship plays out, save to say there are a few slivers of hope for Takiko alongside the heartbreak as this tender friendship deepens and evolves.

So, to summarise, I loved this thoughtful, beautifully observed story, a profound exploration of the challenges of raising a child alone in a deeply conservative society. Alongside motherhood, Tsushima also finds space for some reflections on fathers here – for instance, the shadow of absent fathers (vs the impact of those who are present) is keenly felt. In many ways, it is a novel of contrasts: pain vs joy; isolation vs connection; the burden of single motherhood vs the freedom to express oneself; and bittersweet dreams vs magical, shimmering light. As in her other novels, Tsushima uses imagery and descriptions of light so well here, accentuating the underlying atmosphere and mood. A gorgeous, evocative read for #WITMonth – very highly recommended indeed.

Woman Running in the Mountains is published by NYRB Classics; my thanks to the publishers for kindly providing a review copy.