About a quarter of the way through Emily Grandy’s gorgeously written and expertly plotted debut novel, Michikusa House, her protagonist Winona (Win) asks: “Why does art always have to be about suffering?”

Grandy’s novel answers the question by enacting another type of art. As the book opens, Win is a college nutrition major in recovery from an eating disorder. Her recovery comes partly through Western medicine but also, and to a greater extent, through her year-long home stay at Michikusa House, the site of an artists’ colony in Japan. The novel examines not her diseased state, but what happens after her initial recovery. How does Win find her way forward?   

The book’s structure reflects Win’s struggles. The narrative skillfully toggles between the story of her current relationships with family and boyfriend and the story of her year away. In this coming-of-age story, Win wrestles with her experiences at Michikusa House, confronting adult choices about who she wants to be and how much she owes her parents and her first boyfriend, who cared for her when she was sick. 

Neither her parents nor her boyfriend understand her desire to reject the success-oriented values of American life. In fact, Win is learning her priorities are quite different. In one scene, in which Win is viewing the art at a faculty show where her mother’s art is also on display, Win explains the type of art she admires. “I’m drawn to the work of an Argentinian textile artist,” she says, “who has created murals made entirely of felted wool dyed wildly pigmented colors. The way they’re laid out, the figures and symbols nested neatly within a circle, reminds me of the sand mandalas created by Tibetan monks.” 

Though Win is speaking of visual art, her comments may be understood in relation to the novel itself. Both the mural and the mandalas use natural materials to make something beautiful, and, in so doing, they celebrate the world of the senses. Grandy’s novel does something similar, drawing the reader into a sensually appealing natural world. After quitting college to work in a Cleveland cemetery, Win describes how the work brings her close to nature:

The moss is feathery and wet and when I kneel for a closer look, my knee touches another pillowy green hummock. The ground moss’s growth is so dense that its individual characteristics are indiscernible to my naked eye. Something about the wetness of the day, I think, or maybe just the drab monochrome of everything else—the melting snow, the headstones, the tree bark, the desiccated leaves—makes the colors of these small plants appear especially vibrant.

As Win moves away from the values of boyfriend and parents, she also starts to cook. Holding a white turnip, she is reminded of communal meals at Michikusa House. She thinks of her soon-to-be lover, Jun, who “would have cooked [the turnips] down in a light dashi broth until soft enough to puree, drizzling olive oil and sea salt on top to make a simple but elegant soup. We would eat it with brown rice, cooked low and slow until tender and chewy. Jun would, of course, serve the dish with homemade pickles. The meal would be light and sweet, the courses complimenting each other perfectly.” These sensual passages are complemented by illustrations that open each chapter and invite the reader to slow down, to take in the book as an experience.

While Grandy’s work stands out for its description of sensual pleasures, it is equally good at dramatizing emotionally fraught moments. Here, Grandy describes a moment of awkward recognition between Jun, the devoted chef, and Win, who is less skilled in the kitchen: 

The intensity of those eyes startled me, and I turned back to my little task, haphazardly putting the finishing touches on my plate of arranged vegetables. He did the same, but a bit too quickly. He bumped into an open drawer and knocked both his precious kitchen knife and the sauces he’d just prepared to the floor. I jumped as the knife spun out. I could feel my heart pounding, but whether it arose from the clatter or his intense gaze, I couldn’t have said. 

When a narrator has experiences in a different culture, there is risk that the narrator, as well as the author, might romanticize those experiences. It’s a particular concern with Japan, which has often been exoticized by Western writers. Grandy avoids this pitfall in several ways. First, Michikusa House does not stand in for the whole of Japan. Further, Japan’s flaws are described to Win by Jun, whose remarks constitute a self-critique by a cultural insider. Jun seeks refuge at Michikusa House partly as a result of damage sustained by his Japanese upbringing. He additionally corrects some of Win’s misperceptions about the culture, and Win constantly questions herself so the reader is also able to question her perceptions as well. 

Win is an idealist, as I suspect Grandy is too, and the work, I believe, is meant to inspire. Does it tip into romanticism on occasion? Perhaps, but the tipping is grounded in character: Win spends only a year at Michikusa House and falls in love there. Of course she romanticizes the experience to some extent. In addition, Grandy mostly undercuts the romanticism of Win’s vision. For example, many of the beautiful descriptions of nature are in a cemetery with co-workers who are far from ideal. On the whole, Grandy strikes a balance between idealism and romanticism. 

 By contrasting Win’s desire for a grounded, holistic life with her family’s desire for an ambitious one, Michikusa House makes an implicit plea for social change. But Grandy doesn’t preach, nor does she focus on suffering. Like the art that Win admires, the Tibetan sand mandalas and the murals of dyed wool, Grandy’s novel inspires in its reader a desire to share in the protagonist’s hope for a life more grounded in nature, beauty, and connection—and that is this book’s beautiful gift.

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Before she became an author and scientific editor, Emily Grandy worked as a biomedical engineer and clinical research specialist. Her debut novel, Michikusa House, was awarded the Landmark Prize. Her other writing has appeared in both scientific and literary publications. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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Mary Lannon’s unpublished novel Tide Girl was a finalist for the 2023 PEN\Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Her short stories have been published in Story, New World Writing, and The Woven Tale Press, among other outlets. She teaches at Nassau Community College on Long Island and lives in Queens, New York. More information is at MaryLannon.com.