Join us

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Newsletter

Jennifer Tseng

Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness

Cover: Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness - Jennifer Tseng

Jennifer Tseng

Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness

2015, pp. 272, Paperback
ISBN: 9781609452698
Region: United States
Available as ebook Available as ebook Available as ebook
$ 16.00
READ NOW READ NOW READ NOW
Sample chapter Sample chapter Sample chapter

The book

Books may be Mayumi Saito’s greatest love and her one source of true pleasure. Forty-one years old, disenchanted wife and dutiful mother, Mayumi’s work as a librarian on a small island off the coast of New England feeds her passion for reading and provides her with many occasions for wry observations on human nature, but it does little to remedy the mundanity of her days. That is, until the day she issues a library card to a shy seventeen-year-old boy and swiftly succumbs to a sexual obsession that subverts the way she sees the library, her family, the island she lives on, and ultimately herself. Wary of the consequences of following through on her fantasies, Mayumi hesitates at first. But she cannot keep the young man from her thoughts. After a summer of overlong glances and nervous chitchat in the library, she finally accepts that their connection is undeniable. In a sprawling house emptied of its summer vacationers, their affair is consummated and soon consolidated thanks to an explosive charge of erotic energy. Mayumi’s life is radically enriched by the few hours each week that she shares with the young man, and as their bond grows stronger thanks not only to their physical closeness but also to their long talks about the books they both love, those hours spent apart seem to Mayumi increasingly bleak and intolerable. As her obsession worsens, in a frantic attempt to become closer to the young man, Mayumi nervously befriends another librarian patron, the young man’s mother. The two women forge a tenuous friendship that will prove vital to both in the most unexpected ways when catastrophe strikes. Exquisitely written, Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness is part wry confession, part serious meditation. At its most anxious, it’s a book about time, at its most ecstatic, it’s a deeply human story about pleasure.

The author

Jennifer Tseng
Jennifer Tseng’s first book The Man With My Face won the 2005 Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s National Poetry Manuscript Competition and a 2006 PEN American Center Open Book Award. Her second book Red Flower, White Flower, winner of the Marick Press Poetry Prize, features Chinese translations by Mengying Han and Aaron Crippen. Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness is her debut novel. She is the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Press

From the same country

  • Cover: Where the Forest Meets the River - Shannon Bowring

    Shannon Bowring

    Where the Forest Meets the River

    2024, pp. 336, $ 18.00
    Return to Dalton as Shannon Bowring draws another stunningly human portrait of small town America.
  • Cover: Bite Your Friends - Fernanda Eberstadt

    Fernanda Eberstadt

    Bite Your Friends

    2024, pp. 288, $ 28.00
    Raw, sinuous, high-stakes, Bite Your Friends is a subversive memoir and a mesmerizing history of the body as a site of resistance...
  • Cover: The Dolphin House - Audrey Schulman

    Audrey Schulman

    The Dolphin House

    2024, pp. 320, $ 17.95
    Based on the true story of the 1965 “dolphin house” experiment, this spellbinding novel captures the tenor of the social experiments of the 1960’s...
  • Cover: The Long Corner - Alexander Maksik

    Alexander Maksik

    The Long Corner

    2023, pp. 288, $ 16.95
    A bold novel about ambition, grief, creativity, beauty, and existential emptiness that retraces the arc of American life and culture in the first...
  • Cover: The Road to Dalton - Shannon Bowring

    Shannon Bowring

    The Road to Dalton

    2023, pp. 250, $ 18.00
    From debut author Shannon Bowring comes a novel of small town America that Pulitzer-winner Richard Russo calls, “measured, wise, and beautiful”.
  • Cover: The Passenger: Space - AA.VV.

    AA.VV.

    The Passenger: Space

    2022, pp. 192, $ 22.00
    Fully-illustrated, The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, art and reportage from around the world. IN THIS...

More suggestions

  • Cover: The Colony - Annika Norlin

    Annika Norlin

    The Colony

    2025, pp. 464, $ 19.00
    A mega best-seller in Sweden, with rights sold to over a dozen countries and a TV adaptation underway, Annika Norlin’s debut novel The Colony...
  • Cover: The Tokyo Suite - Giovana Madalosso

    Giovana Madalosso

    The Tokyo Suite

    2025, pp. 208, $ 17.00
    The English-language debut of one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Brazilian literature, The   Tokyo Suite is a gripping exploration...
  • Cover: The Café with No Name - Robert Seethaler

    Robert Seethaler

    The Café with No Name

    2025, pp. 208, $ 25.00
    From one of Austria’s most beloved and best-selling authors, comes this vibrant tale of love, companionship, and renewal set against the transformations...
  • Cover: The Malcontents - Sacha Naspini

    Sacha Naspini

    The Malcontents

    2025, pp. 480, $ 25.00
    There is a village carved into the rock of the Maremma hinterland in Tuscany and its name is Le Case. A dying country. A provincial trap. A microcosm...
  • Cover: A Calamity of Noble Houses - Amira Ghenim

    Amira Ghenim

    A Calamity of Noble Houses

    2025, pp. 432, $ 28.00
    A finalist for the 2021 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, a compelling saga of two families that illuminates the lives of women in modern...
  • Cover: The Other Profile - Irene Graziosi

    Irene Graziosi

    The Other Profile

    2025, pp. 208, $ 17.95
    A story of a conflicted friendship and its unraveling, told against the background of an ever-present, mind-twisting social media-verse

Join Our Newsletter and receive a FREE eBook!

Stay updated on Europa’s forthcoming releases, author tours and major news.

Are you a bookseller? Click here!

Are you a librarian? Click here!

X