One Morning Like a Bird

1940. Tokyo. Japan is

at war with China, and Yuji Takano is clinging to the life he has made

for himself as a young poet - the company of his friends, the monthly

meetings of the French Club at Monsieur Feneon's house, the days of

writing and contemplation made possible by an allowance from his father,

a professor at Tokyo's elite Imperial university...But the world is

closing in on Yuji. His father is disgraced, the allowance is scrapped,

and the threat of conscription is coming ever closer. And then there is

Monsieur Feneon's nineteen-year-old daughter Alissa, a girl with her own

very definite ideas of what she wants, and whose fate becomes

inextricably bound up with Yuji's. In hauntingly evocative prose, Andrew

Miller tells a timeless story about growing up and growing free of

self-delusions, about following the heart and making the right choices

in life. Vividly conveying its setting, he also draws a fascinating

portrait of a bygone Tokyo and of Japan at a critical juncture in its

history.