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Saito is a spinster tasked with looking after her bed-ridden father and younger brother, Stum. The family lives in a neat house in Canada, where they relocated following the war in Japan.
Saito divides her time between cleaning and caring for her family, tending her garden, and observing the goings on of her neighbourhood through her windows. A voyeur and introvert, Saito is slowly brought out of her shell when another Japanese family arrives, and she befriends Chisako and her husband, Yano.
In leaving her comfort zone and being exposed to Chisako’s secrets and Yano’s political ramblings, she is also drawn to Sachi, a young girl in the neighbourhood in love with Chisako and Yano’s son.
Sachi, like Saito, is a loner and misfit. Erratic and strangely mature for a young girl, Sachi teaches Saito as much about life as she herself learns. However, the carefree paths of Sachi and Saito are thrown together when catastrophe strikes the neighbourhood.
Chisako is murdered and her husband and children have disappeared. Saito loses a friend, Sachi loses a lover, and together they must work to understand the secrets of Chisako’s family, and find those who have vanished.
The Electrical Field is delicately written, with such emotional reserve and so much unsaid that the reader feels isolated and in mourning for the unknown, as the characters themselves must feel.
The slow progress of the story and Sakamoto’s withholding information builds a sense of tension and adds a definite sadness and helplessness to the story, portraying both Saito and Sachi as damaged, incomplete women. Sakamoto beautifully illustrates the difficulties in trying to find one’s place in a foreign land, and how loss and tragedy shape us all.
The Electrical Field is hauntingly beautiful; an intricate plot is woven among loss and darkness, hiding the true depth of the characters’ emotion in the manner which is reminiscent of a fan before a geisha’s face – what the reader sees is only the surface of something truly amazing, and must complete the picture with care.
Read more reviews on Samantha’s blog.
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