The Scent of Sake: A Powerful Saga of One Woman Who Defied Tradition to Forge Her Empire - Softcover

Lebra, Joyce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061662372 ISBN 13: 9780061662379

Publisher: Avon, 2009

Synopsis

She was taught to submit, to obey . . . but she dreamed of an empire.

The sole heir to the House of Omura, a venerable family of Kobe sake brewers, nineteen-year-old Rie hears but cannot heed her mother's advice: that in nineteenth-century Japan, a woman must "kill the self" or her life will be too difficult to bear. In this strict, male-dominated society, women may not even enter the brewery—and repressive tradition demands that Rie turn over her family's business to the inept philanderer she's been forced to marry. She is even expected to raise her husband's children by another woman—a geisha—so that they can eventually run the Omura enterprise.

But Rie's pride will not allow her to relinquish what is rightfully hers. With courage, cunning, brilliance, and skill, she is ready to confront every threat that arises before her—from prejudice to treachery to shipwrecks to the insidious schemes of relentless rivals—in her bold determination to forge a magnificent dynasty. . . and to, impossibly, succeed.

An epic and breathtaking saga that spans generations as it sweeps through the heart of a century, Joyce Lebra's The Scent of Sake is a vivid and powerful entry into another world. . . and an unforgettable portrait of a woman who would not let that world defeat her.

About this title

About the Author

Joyce Lebra is the celebrated author of 11 non-fiction titles. She is a scholar of Japan and notable professor emeritus at the University of Colorado.

From the Back Cover

She was taught to submit, to obey . . . but she dreamed of an empire.

The sole heir to the House of Omura, a venerable family of Kobe sake brewers, nineteen-year-old Rie hears but cannot heed her mother's advice: that in nineteenth-century Japan, a woman must "kill the self" or her life will be too difficult to bear. In this strict, male-dominated society, women may not even enter the brewery—and repressive tradition demands that Rie turn over her family's business to the inept philanderer she's been forced to marry. She is even expected to raise her husband's children by another woman—a geisha—so that they can eventually run the Omura enterprise.

But Rie's pride will not allow her to relinquish what is rightfully hers. With courage, cunning, brilliance, and skill, she is ready to confront every threat that arises before her—from prejudice to treachery to shipwrecks to the insidious schemes of relentless rivals—in her bold determination to forge a magnificent dynasty...and to, impossibly, succeed.

An epic and breathtaking saga that spans generations as it sweeps through the heart of a century, Joyce Lebra's The Scent of Sake is a vivid and powerful entry into another world...and an unforgettable portrait of a woman who would not let that world defeat her.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Scent of Sake

By Joyce Lebra

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Joyce Lebra
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061662379

Chapter One

It was a day Rie would never forget, the day her mother told her who her husband would be. That day she had knelt in the frigid courtyard scrubbing the wooden sake barrels, barrels so large they had to be lifted by ropes and pulleys. She gripped the big brush in both hands and scrubbed back and forth, back and forth until her muscles ached. She rubbed her blue-cold hands together and held them over her nose and mouth. Then she scratched under the cotton scarf that held back her long thick hair and shifted on the rush mat on which she was kneeling. As she did so, she glanced through the misty screen of her breath at the door of the brewery and inhaled the pungent, mildewy smell of yeast, the smell that permeated every corner of the drafty old wooden house and brewery buildings. Women were never to enter the forbidden door that gaped darkly before her.

"Let a woman enter the brewery and the sake will sour," the old ones always said. Her mother had warned her of this since childhood. But Rie relished the yeasty smell of brewing sake that hung in the air. She had always played near the door and the barrels as a child. As a little girl, she had waited, terrified, for the news that the sake had soured. It never had. Now that she was grown, now that she had her own secret opinions of what women could accomplish, she made it her duty to wash the barrels, a task she took on when she knew her father was not looking. As atonement.

This time he caught her. "Rie! Haven't I warned you to stay away from the brewery door? It's too dangerous to be so close to the kura, brewing building, and washing barrels is not your responsibility."

Rie looked up to see her father looming over her, frowning, hands thrust into the sleeves of the indigo work kimono he always wore. His white chicken-feather eyebrows were dusted with frost and seemed to stand erect in anger.

Understand me, she longed to say. See me as doing my best for you and the house. But she couldn't say it.

Rie stood and bowed, looking down at her feet. Her father, Kinzaemon IX, head of the House of Omura, was the one person in the world she most wanted to please. He represented all nine generations of the ancestors, a long line to which both he and now Rie owed on, the obligation that could never be repaid but toward which one must strive throughout one's life.

At first when her brother had died, so had all her father's hopes and dreams. But after weeks of grieving, he had uttered the portentous words that would change her life: "So now, Rie, the future of the Omura House rests with you. You alone are the one who will maintain the honor and prosperity of the house. Remember, this is a heavy responsibility."

Everyone knew that sake brewing was a man's world, and Kinzaemon could have brought a geisha's son into the house. But with the Kansai chonin, the merchants, they often preferred to adopt a husband for a daughter, an adult clerk who had proven his mettle and would be an asset to the family business. It was common practice among brewers, a good business strategy.

And she had felt it, felt the weight of the generations fall upon her, the hope her father had bestowed upon her. She could not bear his sad eyes or the way her mother got busy every time she neared so as not to let on that she had been crying. Rie had promised herself then that she would take this loss from their shoulders, this burden, and carry it as her own.

Now, as she washed the barrels, she pictured her little brother Toichi's large brown eyes, his sweet face. She should have been watching him closer, her father's only son. He had been her responsibility, and now he was gone. Her guilt was a burden she would bear the rest of her life, the result of her own carelessness and disregard of her responsibility to the house. As she finished scrubbing the last of the barrels all she got was blue-cold hands and a scolding from her father. "Yes, Father. But I do not want to leave this job to others. It's too important. And I'm not so near the door." She glanced up briefly, and looked down again.

"Get back to the kitchen!" Kinzaemon bellowed.

Rie was careful not to let her anger and disappointment show. She bowed, dropped the brush, and ran toward the door leading through the earthen corridor to the rooms of the house. The kitchen. That was the place of women. How unreasonable of her father to expect her to be only a confined "girl in a box."

Now she was the first and only child. The samurai knew what to do about barren wives who had only daughters. A mistress could always be found to provide an heir for the house. Still, the Kansai merchant houses found daughters useful. The midwives liked to announce with the birth of a daughter: "It's a girl, so the house will prosper." With a son you really had a gamble, true enough. You had to take what you got, and that could be a bright boy or a dull one. Her baby brother Toichi had been bright. Still, with a daughter, intelligent or not, you had a range of choices for an adopted husband for her. And for an important house like the Omuras, there were plenty of prospects, excellent ones.

With Toichi gone, it was imperative that Rie take an interest in the business, this she knew, to learn as much as she could from her imperious father and chief clerk, Kin. "Knowing about the brewery will help your husband in the future, the house. I want our brewery to be number one," her father had always said.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Scent of Sakeby Joyce Lebra Copyright © 2009 by Joyce Lebra. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Avon
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061662372
• ISBN 13: 9780061662379
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384