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“[An] impressively
imagined and often exquisite act of ventriloquism…[Burnham Schwartz is]
unusually sensitive to the Japanese habits of reticence and indirection…What is
singular and most striking about The
Commoner is how deeply and authoritatively it inhabits the mind and the
sensibility of a young Japanese woman.”
— New York Review of Books
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“A mesmerizing novel
full of tenderness and compassion, one that convincingly invests the Japanese
empress’s voice with all the nuance it demands.”
— Washington Post
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“Schwartz leaps with
prodigious skill…Through painstaking research and a humane sensibility, he has
opened a window on a strange, cloistered world.”
— Wall Street Journal
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“Schwartz is a keen
observer of Japan…You can sternly remind yourself every few pages that this is
fiction, or you can relax and enjoy the fantasy that you are privy to two of
the most private public lives in the world.”
— Los Angeles Times
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“Instead of
overwhelming a reader with the amount of research he must have done, Schwartz
instead selects evocative details to paint finely wrought miniatures of the
past.”
— Christian Science Monitor
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“[Schwartz] finds the
heartbreak, the wistfulness and the poignancy within this world, demonstrating
how easy it is to be trapped.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
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“As an author who has
aimed for a clean, transparent style throughout his career, Schwartz finds his
perfect subject in this tale of Japanese royalty. Fans of Memoirs of a Geisha and royal gossip will savoir it.”
— Daily News
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“The Commoner is a story about conservative Japan’s begrudging
evolution. You’ll find humanity’s struggle in there, too. The research on
post-war Japan rewards readers with fascinating scenes…and the writing bristles
with a calculated swing.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“Brave is the
novelist who casts a narrative in a voice that traverses gender and a cultural
divide. Schwartz makes the gambit pay off, impressively, in The Commoner…[He] does a superb job of
conveying the painful sense of isolation that comes from living in a cloistered
world.”
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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“Schwartz is a master
novelist.”
— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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“A subtle, finely
wrought fiction that evokes Jane Austen…A tour de force; the creation of a
wholly convincing Japanese heroine by a male American writer reflects the
triumph of imagination over experience.”
— San Jose Mercury News
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“It is very difficult
for a twenty-first-century reader to comfortably enter the restrictive
tradition that seems, even now, to be the Imperial Court…While the external
details of life in the palace remain stunning, it’s Schwartz’s grasp of the
internal struggle that resonates after the last page is turned.”
— Denver Post
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“The beauty of the
story, besides the meticulous research, is the human dimension…Schwartz has
written a powerful, instructive book.”
— Tampa Tribune
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“A riveting narrative,
smoothly written and often heartbreaking…The
Commoner offers a fascinating, in-depth look at an ancient world of courtly
institutions, formal performance, and individual negation.”
— Providence Journal
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“[The Commoner]
paints a carefully researched, evocative picture of a country that emerged from
World War II with everything blown apart but its moat-protected heart…Schwartz
opens a gilded window into a seldom-seen world and the traditions that have
sustained a monarchy through centuries, only to threaten the young lives needed
to carry it into the future.”
— USA Today
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“Expertly evokes the
sense of powerlessness and isolation that mark both royal life and bad
marriages…An artful meditation on the limits of love and duty.”
— People
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“Schwartz pulls off a
grand feat in giving readers a moving dramatization of a cloistered world.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“This story is as
ethereal and sensual as a Japanese watercolor, as magical and dark as a fairy
tale.”
— Booklist
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“The Commoner is a lovely book, quiet, rich, fascinating in
character and details, beautifully written.”
— Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author of Traveling Mercies
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“A unique literary
adventure, intimate, exotic; wonderfully imagined and achieved. The narrative
impels the reader from first to last, immersing us in its flow of ancient
acceptances and new demands. Splendid.”
— Shirley Hazzard, New York Times bestselling author of The Transit of Venus and The Great Fire
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“A fascinating and
moving book in which great harm—all the more painful for being quiet and
impersonal—befalls characters who, with one exception, are entirely innocent
and sympathetic. The Commoner is a
rare novel, wonderfully researched and beautifully written.”
— Peter Matthiessen, New York Times bestselling author of Killing Mister Watson