The Story of H

June 18, 2018
Spanish author Perezagua’s audacious novel, the first of her works to be translated into English, epistolizes an intersex woman’s quest to find her sanity, her sex, and a family to replace the one incinerated by the Americans at Hiroshima. H, a child whose parents chose to see her as a boy even though she identified as a girl, survived Little Boy, the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. After being adopted by a family in America, she tells of meeting Jim, a veteran searching for Yoro, a girl delivered into his care in the aftermath of the war. Together they travel the world, hunting for the child. When Jim dies, H becomes involved with a professor she calls Irrational Number, but she is so psychologically damaged that their relationship soon ends in a surprising, abrupt manner. She continues the search for Yoro, so bound to the idea of her that she narrates as if pregnant with the girl, though she knows she is not. Following a lead years after she first began searching for Yoro, H travels to Africa, where she divulges a startling confession and is involved in a violent crime. Inventive
if often didactic, this ambitious book plunges with courage into the moral morass of a horrific period in history.

July 1, 2018
An intersex woman joins an American ex-soldier in a search for his adopted daughter.Perezagua's new novel, her first to appear in English, is so strange it's difficult to begin with a summary. Let's say that it's a blend of fiction and essay, and though it doesn't really qualify as magical realism, it certainly isn't just realism either. The book is narrated by H, an intersex woman who'd been a schoolboy in Hiroshima when the bomb fell. Along with everything else, she left her old identity behind. Now she's with Jim, an American ex-soldier formerly stationed in Hiroshima. Jim is desperately searching for Yoro, the Japanese daughter he adopted after the war. Yoro disappeared on him, or was taken from him; in any case, H joins him in his search. H narrates their story in a circular, roundabout way, full of repetitions and asides--though it isn't always clear where the asides end and the main story begins. Early on, H admits to a murder of some sort, circumstances unclear. She directs her story to an otherwise unnamed "sir," an authority apparently in hot pursuit. It wouldn't be fair to say that none of this is realistic--it isn't meant to be realistic. But it isn't believable, either, not even in its own weird world. H's digressions become tiresome. Her sometimes-sanctimonious tone does, too. The novel apparently grew out of a short story. One gets the impression it would have been more successful shrunk down to its original size.With a narrative style that quickly grows tiresome, this experimental novel never quite reaches emotional depth.

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July 1, 2018
H is born intersex in Hiroshima, then her life is forever changed on August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb unleashes unparalleled devastation. H is left severely burned, which enables her to choose her gender identity when her male genitalia are removed during reconstructive surgery. Years later, H falls in love with Jim, an American soldier who was a foster parent for a Japanese baby for five years until the child was suddenly taken away and given to another family. H, unable to have a child of her own, joins Jim in his quest to find the adopted daughter, Yoro. Rich with symbolism and recurring motifs, the story folds in on itself like origami. We learn that H has committed a crime, followed by her confession, and that she has been both victim and witness to acts of state-sponsored violence, yet is able to find hope amid the wreckage. Although the letter H is often silent, this thought-provoking novel charting the aching distance between the heart and tongue gives voice to the mutability and resilience of the human spirit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)