Gasa-Gasa Girl | 
 enlarge | Author: Naomi Hirahara
Publisher: Dell
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $3.29
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 282682
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0440241553
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780440241553
ASIN: 0440241553
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
From the time she was a child, Mas Arai’s daughter, Mari, was completely gasa-gasa–never sitting still, always on the go, getting into everything. And Mas, busy tending lawns, gambling, and struggling to put his Hiroshima past behind him, never had much time for the family he was trying to support. For years now, his resentful daughter has lived a continent away in New York City, and had a life he knew little about. But an anxious phone call from Mari asking for his help plunges the usually obstinate Mas into a series of startling situations from maneuvering in an unfamiliar city to making nice with his tall, blond son-in-law, Lloyd, to taking care of a sickly child…to finding a dead body in the rubble of a former koi pond.
The victim was Kazzy Ouchi, a half-Japanese millionaire who also happened to be Mari and Lloyd’s boss. Stumbling onto the scene, Mas sees more amiss than the detectives do, but his instinct is to keep his mouth shut. Only when the case threatens his daughter and her family does Mas take action: patiently, stubbornly tugging at the end of a tangled, dangerous mystery. And as he does, he begins to lay bare a tragic secret on the dark side of an American dream.…
Both a riveting mystery and a powerful story of passionate relationships across a cultural divide, Gasa-Gasa Girl is a tale told with heart and wisdom: an unforgettable portrait of fathers, daughters, and other strangers.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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"[Hirahara] brings heart and elegance to a nifty whodunit.... In the process of solving a murder mystery, an elderly Japanese-American begins to rebuild the strained relationship with his only daughter."
--Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Summer of the Big Bachi :
"[A] seamless and shyly powerful first novel..... Peppered with pungent cultural details, crisp prose and credible, fresh descriptions of the effects of the A-bomb, this perfectly balanced gem deserves a wide readership."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Naomi Hirahara's story of forgotten men who share an unforgettable past sweeps the reader into a world most of us know little about. Luckily, our guide is Mas Arai, a complete original, and Hirahara's sure and generous voice brings him vividly to life.”
– S.J. Rozan, Edgar award winning of Winter and Night
“Naomi Hirahara is a bright new voice on the mystery scene. Summer of the Big Bachi presents an intriguing puzzle written with a true insider’s eye for Japanese American life”
–Dale Furutani, Anthony award winning author of Death in Little Tokyo
“A novel about social change wrapped inside a mystery, Summer of the Big Bachi toggles deftly between past and present and reveals the hopes and compromises that lurk on the fringes of the American Dream.”
–Denise Hamilton, Edgar award nominated author of Last Lullaby
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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| Customer Reviews:
Solid Mystery April 29, 2008
This is the 2nd Mas Arai mystery but I read them out of order. I actually read her third mystery first and her first mystery second and this one last.
As far as I can tell they are all about the same. The mysteries are complex and difficult to solve although the books are quite short. Except for the daughter, the so-called "gasa-gasa girl" the characters are interesting and unique. I read a review that her use of Japanese words and phrases was frustrating because she gave no definitions so I paid careful attention when reading this book and I did not find that to be the case here. Perhaps that was a problem with the first book. I think most people would find this enjoyable.
 Sophomore Jinx April 12, 2006
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
Talk about a Sophomore Jinx! After what appeared to be a brilliant start with her first novel, The Big Bachi, Naomi Hirahara serves up this stinker. I don't know who should be more embarrassed: her, for writing it, or me, for previously recommending her.
Some of the problems: a preposterous plot, unlikely clues, characters you don't care about (especially Mas' daughter, who seems anything but the promised Gasa-Gasa), gratuitous Japanese language insertions, unconvincing dialect, extended and tedious descriptions of the mundane (she persists in treating the subway as an exotic "underground train" and describing in depth how to ride it), and explaining the simplest things as if writing for a 12 year old.
Stick to her first book.
 Gasa Gasa Girl October 21, 2005
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Naomi Hirahara is one of the best authors out there. Gasa Gasa Girl and Big Bachi are wondeful reading. American-Japanese culture mixed in with a suspense, a must read for those who love suspense novels
Excellent writing about an under-explored section of American culture July 30, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Old Masao Arai, American-born L.A. gardener and survivor of Hiroshima, is a character who grows on you. In this second book in what looks to become a series, Mas has been called across the country to Brooklyn by his daughter, who has married an Anglo named Lloyd -- who, Mas discovers, is also a gardener and a student of the Japanese style. "Gasa-gasa" means "always on the move" and that certainly describes Mari Arai Jensen. When the benefactor of the foundation that owns the garden where Lloyd works is mudered, everyone involved is pointing fingers in different directions, except that several of them end up pointing at Mari. Mas, well aware of having never been the best of fathers, takes upon himself the job of solving the killing to protect his extended family. He's aided by Tug Yamada, Nisei war hero and all-around straight-arrow, who's also visiting in New York, and by his network of cronies back on the coast. Things get dicey more than once, but Mas is a stubborn o ld coot and he keeps at it. The author has a gift for empathetic characterization and dialogue, and for efficient description in a scene. Her prose is direct and unpretentious, and I look forward to more stories about these guys.
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