'One Hundred Flowers': A moving exploration of loss, love and living with dementia

Japan Times

21-03-2025

One New Year's Eve, novelist Genki Kawamura's grandmother seemed to think he was a child back in school. He was over 35 years old at the time. On a separate occasion, she forgot his name.
Inspired by her battle with Alzheimer's disease, he went on to write 'One Hundred Flowers,' a thoughtful portrayal of a woman suffering from dementia that is both moving and authentic, drawing on his own experiences.
One Hundred Flowers, by Genki Kawamura. Translated by Cathy Hirano. 288 pages. ITHACA PRESS, Fiction.
Since the 2000s, Kawamura has had success as a film producer (he has worked with Japanese auteurs such as Hirokazu Kore-eda and Makoto Shinkai), director and novelist. His novel 'One Hundred Flowers' was originally published in 2019, and in 2022, he wrote and directed the film adaptation, for which he won the best director prize at the San Sebastian International Film Festival the same year. He is the first Japanese to receive the award.
His first novel to be translated into English, 'If Cats Disappeared from the World,' was an international bestseller in 2019, translated into over 30 languages. 'One Hundred Flowers' is his second work available in English, translated by Cathy Hirano, published on March 13.
The novel is not simply an intimate look at a mother struggling with memory loss and diminished awareness. By shifting between the dual perspectives of the mother and her adult son, the novel chiefly considers how memories — losing them or acknowledging them — inform our overall growth as humans.
In its best moments, the reading experience is quietly profound. Sometimes, however, it feels like too many tangled threads that don't connect for a cleanly woven whole.
The novel opens with Yuriko, the 67-year-old mother and piano teacher, who is caught up in a wave of confusing memories. Her son, the 37-year-old Izumi Kasai, arrives at her house, irritated that she is not home waiting. He eventually finds her alone on a swing in the local park where she has wandered off. It is New Year's Eve, as well as the day before her birthday, and it is one of the rare times during the year Izumi comes to visit. As Izumi lets the buried memory of his mother's past betrayal reach the surface, the traumatic reason behind their fraught relationship gradually becomes clear.
There are also various subplots at play. Izumi works in the music industry, finding and managing young performers. His wife, Kaori, works for the same company, and she is generally acknowledged — by Izumi and others — to be the more successful of the pair. Kaori is also pregnant with their first child and will soon take maternity leave. This complicates Izumi's conflicting feelings for his mother and his thoughts of becoming a father when he never knew his own. He also struggles through a number of problems at work, from a runaway musician to a maverick employee under his supervision.
Each strand of the narrative on its own feels authentic: The damaged relationship between a single mother and her adult son with a secret between them; the realities of an aging woman and artist fighting dementia; a young couple searching for shared understanding about becoming parents; the hectic, high-powered pop music industry with its constant tensions between commercialization and art.
Although there's no satisfying, connective resolution, the narrative does provide plenty of moments for smaller contemplations, a believable slice-of-life window into human nature that resonates on multiple levels.