It was a period when wearing a different color kimono could make a political statement, when women stopped blackening their teeth to profess an allegiance to Western ideas, and when Japan’s most mysterious rite-the tea ceremony-became not just a sacramental meal, but a ritual battlefield. The story of two women whose lives intersect in late-nineteenth-century Japan, The Teahouse Fire is also a portrait of one of the most fascinating places and times in all of history-Japan as it opens its doors to the West. Although this is a historical novel as well as a coming-of-age book, the depth of Avery's exploration of her period and her characters lets her soar above the limitations of both genres.“Like attending seasons of elegant tea parties-each one resplendent with character and drama. Avery has whipped up a heady brew of sex and human feeling - Liza Dalby, author of The Tale of Murasaki, Geisha and Kimono In Ellis Avery's The Teahouse Fire, aesthetic rules vie with politics, sex and human feeling. Should appeal to fans of Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day * Scotland on Sunday * Her novel is a rather beautiful thing: all the more so for emulating the values of another world * Financial Times * Avery captures all this with the emotional poise befitting her characters, and great sensual pleasure. The tea ceremony becomes a tiny stage on which grand passions are enacted. Publisher: Vintage Publishing ISBN: 9780099516187 Number of pages: 400 Weight: 285 g Dimensions: 197 x 130 x 24 mm MEDIA REVIEWS But her feelings for her mistress are never reciprocated and as tensions mount in the household Aurelia begins to realise that to the world around her she will never be anything but an outsider.Ī lushly detailed, spellbinding story, The Teahouse Fire is an unforgettable debut. Knowing only a few words of Japanese she hides in a tea house and is adopted by the family who own it: gradually falling in love with both the tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukako.Īs Aurelia grows up she devotes herself to the family and its failing fortunes in the face of civil war and western intervention, and to Yukako's love affairs and subsequent marriage. When Aurelia flees the fire that kills her missionary uncle and leaves her orphaned and alone in nineteenth-century Japan, she has no idea how quickly her wish will be answered. What I asked for? Any life but this one.'
'When I was nine, in the city now called Kyoto, I changed my fate.
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