Sansei and Sensibility

In these buoyant and inventive stories, Yamashita transfers classic tales across boundaries and questions what an inheritance―familial, cultural, emotional, artistic―really means. In a California of the ’60s and ’70s, characters examine the contents of deceased relatives’ freezers, tape-record high-school locker-room chatter, or collect a community’s gossip while cleaning the teeth of its inhabitants. Mr. Darcy is the captain of the football team, Mansfield Park materializes in a suburb of L.A., bake sales replace balls, and station wagons, not horse-drawn carriages, are the preferred mode of transit. The stories of traversing class, race, and gender leap into our modern world with wit and humor.I. SanseiThe BathThe Dentist and the Dental HygienistA Gentlemen's AgreementBombay GinBorges & IKiss of KittyIndian SummerColono:ScopyKonMarimasuSansei RecipesA Selected L.A./Gardena J.A. TimelineII. SensibilityShikataganai & MottainaiGiri & GamanMonterey ParkEmiJapanese American GothicThe PersuAsiansOmaki-sanJ.A. Cheat SheetAfterword: Sansei Janeite