In its physical form, it's a journey to Japan to attempt to make contact with the families of kamikaze pilots, one of whom came close to killing the author's father. It's also a spiritual journey of reconciliation, both with former enemies of New Zealand, and with an alcoholic parent.
The first half of this book tells a series of stories: of the author's childhood and youth in postwar New Zealand; of his parents' meeting and marriage; of his father's life and death; of the latter part of the war in the Pacific in 1944-45; and individual stories of a number of kamikaze pilots: those men who flew planes filled with explosives as human-guided bombs, sacrificing their lives to attack their enemies' warships.
All this prepares the reader for the author's own 2011 journey from New Zealand to Japan. This part of the book is a travelogue, intensified by the significance of the author's mission.
For New Zealanders of a certain age, the book resounds with resonances of growing up in mid/late 20th-century New Zealand. History fans will be fascinated by perspectives on kamikaze warfare, including the political and emotional climate of wartime Japan, and the recorded experiences of kamikaze pilots themselves.
The author is a fine poet, but saves poetry for those parts of his story where his emotions run highest and deepest; most of this tale is told simply and directly, with diverse, vivid imagery including samurai swords, the Christchurch earthquakes, Airfix model aircraft, Shinto temples, wartime working-class Britain, modern high-speed trains, an aircraft carrier in the heat of battle and a bag of browning cherry blossom. The images are figurative and literal: every few pages, a photograph or diagram adds its own ''thousand words''.
The admixture forms a very coherent whole: each image; each poem; each picture; each perspective is a necessary part of experiencing a New Zealander's journey to an understanding of his father, his father's foes and something of himself.
- Marcus Turner is a Dunedin natural history researcher.
