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The Thorn Puller
Published on December 13, 2022
The Thorn Puller should go down not just as one of the best Japanese novels in translation of this year, but of recent years.
—Eric Margolis, Japan Times
With ruthless honesty and wicked humor, her observations on life, death, and the in-between make for a fearless look at what every adult in every country must face: growing older as their loved ones do too.
—Eileen Gonzalez, starred review in Foreword
This award-winning story of a woman struggling to care for her aging parents in Japan while keeping up with the demands of her husband and children in California reverberates powerfully with readers worldwide. Ito has been described as a "shaman of poetry" because of her skill in allowing the voices of others to flow through her. In The Thorn Puller, she channels myriad voices drawn from Japanese folklore, poetry, literature, and pop culture. The result is a generic chimera—part poetry, part prose, part epic—a unique, transnational, polyvocal mode of storytelling.
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HIROMI ITO came to national attention in Japan in the 1980s for her groundbreaking poetry about pregnancy, childbirth, and female sexuality. After relocating to the U.S. in the 1990s, she began to write about the immigrant experience and biculturalism. In recent years, she has focused on the ways that dying and death shape human experience.
JEFFREY ANGLES is a writer and professor of Japanese and Japanese literature at Western Michigan University. He is the first non-native poet writing in Japanese to win the Yomiuri Prize for Literature, a highly coveted prize for poetry. His translation of the modernist classic The Book of the Dead by Shinobu Orikuchi won both the Miyoshi Award and the Scaglione Prize for translation.
Hiromi Itō and Jeffrey Angles were invited back to City of Asylum in May for the International Jazz Poetry Month 2023, featuring readings accompanied by Brazilian-American singer-songwriter Alexia Bomtempo and her band. Pittsburgh, May 14, 2023.
Hiromi Ito, author of The Thorn Puller (the first book published under the Monkey imprint!), with the translator, Jeffrey Angles, at an event at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh on February 26, 2023.
“Poet Ito makes her English-language fiction debut (after the poetry collection Wild Grass on the Riverbank) with a lyrical and discursive autofictional account of a woman caught between two cultures and her family’s demands.”
— Publishers Weekly
“With ruthless honesty and wicked humor … Her observations on life, death, and the in-between make for a fearless look at what every adult in every country must face: growing older as their loved ones do too.”
— Foreword, starred review by Eileen Gonzalez
“Ito pulls a reader in two directions: into the painful banality of ordinary human struggle, and then into the realm of myths, legends and spirits. She uses shapeshifting literary devices, vividly brought to life by translator Jeffrey Angles in English, to explore universal suffering with one-of-a-kind style.”
— Tokyo Weekender, review by Eric Margolis
“In Itō’s literary vision, life unfolds more as a stream of language than a series of plot points. With each phase of life she records, Itō shows how language emerges from the rituals of social reproduction that mark the coming and going of generations, from childbirth to eldercare.”
— Chicago Review, review by Eva Rosenfeld
“The Thorn Puller is a beautiful work, sad and soothing all at once. It is a brave work, as Hiromi Ito shares so much of her life with readers. It carries readers into a mystical world of Japanese folklore, classical literature, and myth. At the same time, it is remarkably contemporary, reminding us all of our own frailties and strengths.”
— Kyoto Journal, review by Rebecca Copeland
“With frank, humorous prose that sinuously morphs into the musical cadence of poetry, The Thorn Puller tackles subjects like aging, death, and suffering from a transnational perspective that also illuminates the bittersweet joy of being alive. ... The Thorn Puller feels very much rooted in the modern day, buoyed by rich lyrical descriptions of nature and daily life. ... I tip my hat to Jeffrey Angles for elevating the cadence of the original Japanese to such wondrous heights.”
— Unseen Japan, review by Alyssa Pearl Fusek
“The Thorn Puller is a masterpiece. Ito writes with the dark humor of someone who knows how to laugh at herself. Nevertheless, she is first and foremost a poet. A poet’s lyricism shines in her novel—in English, thanks to Angles’s deft translation. . . . Ito also conscientiously takes part in a Japanese literary tradition that goes back more than 1700 years.”
— Asian Review of Books, review by Alison Fincher
“I was enthralled by The Thorn Puller for its melodic, mesmerizing voice, for the wisdom it imparted and Ito’s inescapable creative genius.... Expansive and brilliantly crafted, there is something in this novel for everyone.”
— Litro magazine, review by Elizabeth Meehan
“Ito’s chameleonic prose (each chapter ends with influences and inspirations) confronts mortality, cultural conflicts, religious comforts, and waning relationships, embellished with all manner of welcoming, unfiltered, surprisingly humorous honesty about the universally quotidian, from pimple-popping to good sex.”
— Booklist, review by Terry Hong
“The Thorn Puller should go down not just as one of the best Japanese novels in translation of this year, but of recent years; in my opinion, it is the best work of Japanese fiction to appear in English since Haruki Murakami’s 2005 novel Kafka on the Shore.... Angles does an outstanding job recreating Ito’s variety of inventive styles and approaches to language in fluid English.... Ito folds in the mythic with the mundane to connect the everyday types of suffering with the most divine kind of metamorphosis. This shape-shifting work flexes innovative literary devices while maintaining a Joycean directness in its approach to the crude banalities of life.... The musical, playful language makes the story not only a joy to read but adds dense layers of spiritual, historical and literary depth to one woman’s tale.... Ito’s experiences shed light on the difficulties of cross-cultural marriages and immigration, the role of religion and spirituality in modern life, how to be present for your children and friends, and how to try to limit your suffering in a world where suffering seems to have no restraint.”
— Japan Times, review by Eric Margolis
“Sitting down with The Thorn Puller is like hanging out with your best friend and having one of those conversations that wend and wind and digress before coming full circle. You don't have an agenda or talking points, you just know that your friend will say something outrageous about your most intimate and serious problems and that you'll both end up laughing at whatever shit life throws at you ... You may not remember all that you talked about, but you feel rejuvenated and happier for just having been in your friend’s company.... The Thorn Puller is one of the most honest books you will ever read...”
— White Enso, review by Linda A. Gould
"The Thorn Puller is a strong affirmation of life. ... Working collaboratively with the author, Jeffrey Angles, a recognized poet in both English and Japanese, has done a wonderful job translating this work. ... 'Sometimes I dare to imagine I’m an independent woman,' [says the narrator]. Despite all the forces clamoring for her attention, she is, and that is both the strength and appeal of this novel."
— World Literature Today, review by Erik R. Lofgren
“Overflowing and contradictory, worn down with fatigue, yet brimming with energy, The Thorn Puller is a welcome addition to the store of contemporary Japanese literature available in English. ”
— Nippon.com, review by Richard Medhurst
“Itō does a good job in The Thorn Puller of explaining the constant feeling that there is not room for one more thing and then yet one more thing comes along all the time because life is a list of things that happen and is never still.”
— Los Angeles Review of Books, review by Juliana Spahr
"Buddhist philosophy and Japanese folklore are woven into the structure of the book, and the text is alive with allusions to and quotes from classics of Japanese literature. It is a web of references, a work that Ito herself likens more to a poem than a novel, though enjoyment isn’t predicated on prior knowledge. Rather, it is a multi-layered text that rewards repeat readings and deep dives. ... Ito wryly presents her tribulations in the style of Buddhist pilgrimages from classical literature. Jizo and other enlightened bodhisattva are frequently portrayed as laughing, because what else can you do when faced with the absurdity of existence? The Thorn Puller is a glorious, immersive read, packed with laugh-out-loud moments and the kind of reflections that anyone who has married across cultures will recognize. Above all, it is a work of optimism, concluding with a Joycean refrain of positivity: “I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive! I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive!” The circle of life rolls on, so you may as well roll with the punches."
—Metropolis, review by Iain Maloney
"When you read the final page of Hiromi Ito’s The Thorn Puller and put the book down, you walk away in a daze at what she’s accomplished, as if you’ve just witnessed a trapeze artist invent a new way to perform a mid-air triple somersault. The semi-autobiographical book is truly the work of an agile and clever mind."
— Great Lakes Review, review by Rex Bowman
“Ito may have written this book in prose, but we never forget that she’s a poet. There is a special music even in the complaints, scolding, arguments, phone conversations, and gossipy moments. As the narrative unfolds, Ito draws not only upon voices of her family members and others around her, she gathers in countless voices, including those of the dead. And how wonderful to find the rhythm of the Japanese reproduced so marvelously in this translation!”