DREAMING WATER
By Gail Tsukiyama
About this Book
Set in present day California, Dreaming Water is a wrenching portrait of mothers, daughters, and friends. Cate is caring for her daughter Hana who is suffering from Werner's Syndrome, which makes a person age at twice the rate of a healthy individual; at thirty-eight, Hana has the appearance of an eighty year old. As Hana's disease progresses, she and Cate must come to terms with their past and make peace with their future. Their quiet world is turned upside down when Hana's best friend appears with her two energetic daughters after being gone for many years. Gail Tsukiyama is at her best in this poignant, gripping, and beautiful story about love, loss, and friendship.
Discussion Questions for Reading Groups
1. Gail Tsukiyama uses the Eleanor Roosevelt quote “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.” at the beginning of Dreaming Water. Why does she use it? How does this division shape the story?
2. Why do you think that Gail Tsukiyama chooses to have Dreaming Water occur over a two-day period?
3. Gail Tsukiyama deliberately chooses a disease that manifests itself in very specific ways. Why does she choose Werner’s Syndrome?
4. Why is the third voice in the novel Josephine’s and not Laura’s?
5. What role does water play in the book? What does it mean to Hana? Cate? Max?
6. What role does memory play in the story? How do the characters rely on memory?
7. How does Cate and Max’s different cultural backgrounds add to the story?
8. How does the time that Max spends in the internment camp shape the rest of his life?
9. Max’s car means so much more to the family than a means of transportation, what else does it symbolize?
10. What role does nature play in Hana and Cate’s lives?
11. How does Laura help Hana and Cate come to terms with Hana’s illness?
12. Why is Hana able to connect to Josie in ways that Laura isn’t?
13. What’s the significance of everyone returning to the beach in the end? Is the ending fulfilling? Could it have ended in another way?
Critical Praise
"Gail Tuskiyama is a writer of astonishing grace, delicacy, and feeling. Her lyric precision serves not only to leave the reader breathless, but to illuminate human suffering and redemption with clarity and power." — Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
"Tsukiyama creates a bond between Cate and Hana that mothers and daughters will know as almost a physical need, so deeply entwined are they in each other's lives. They anticipate each other's pain; one will unexpectedly laugh or suddenly cry, and the other one responds in kind. The reader, too, laughs and aches under the spell of such graceful writing."— USA Today
"Although Dreaming Water takes place over the span of just two days, in clear, poetic prose Tsukiyama creates a family and their life that necessarily must be lived in their own mysterious and poignant orbit."— Jane Hamilton, author of A Map of the World and Disobedience: A Novel
"Beautifully written, effused with both sadness and hope, Tsukiyama's novel cannot fail to move readers."— Booklist (starred review)
"Tsukiyama has a wonderful ability to elicit delicate atmospherics; in particular, she uses the sense of touch to stunning effect."— Publishers Weekly
"...Tsukiyama blossoms with an intimate portrait of a mother and her dying daughter." — Kirkus Reviews
"Tsukiyama writes beautifully about courage and love, showing us the importance of daily kindnesses and highlighting the beauty found in the relationships among mothers, daughters, and friends."— Library Journal
Author Biography
GAIL TSUKIYAMA is the author of The Language of Threads, Night of Many Dreams, The Samurai's Garden, and Women of the Silk. She lives in El Cerrito, California.
