Yakuza Moon
Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter
Shoko Tendo
Translated by Louise Heal
Hardcover 192 pages
152 x 226mm
ISBN : 978-4-7700-3042-9 / 4-7700-3042-8
Publish : Jul, 2007
I finished this book sometime last week and it was incredible. I don’t really need to summarize the contents really because the title says exactly what it’s about. I can say that the author writes with sometimes shocking candor about her life, beginning with the atmosphere in her home when she was a slittle girl and the effects of it in her psyche that started to show in adolescence.
I read in another review about the book, something that also struck me as I read it – that in spite of everything she went through, she struggles so hard to do the right thing. She always takes responsibility for her actions and looks at her own inner life with an honesty that is incredibly rare. I was moved by her relationship with her parents and how much she wants to heal her relationships with them and to honor them, not simply because it’s her duty but because she genuinely loves and respects them as human beings.
I was moved to tears by this book and I highly recommend it. Just a warning – her experiences are incredibly gritty. There is a lot of heavy drug use and horrifying incidents of abuse at the hands of psychotic boyfriends that put her in the hospital more than once.