On October 2, friends and loved ones of writer Elisabeth Wilkins Lombardo will gather at Print: A Bookstore in Portland, Maine, to celebrate the publication of her first novel, The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda (She Writes Press).
Lombardo, who held an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program and won the PEN/New England Discovery Award for an early draft of Kenzaburo Tsuruda, died in 2015. She was unable to find a home for her novel before being diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and the launch party at Print will mark the end of a long effort on the part of Lombardo's husband and several of her closest friends to bring her work out into the world.
The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda blends history and mysticism as it follows a single Japanese family from the waning years of World War II until the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989. The story begins during the Buddhist holiday of Obon, when the dead return to the living world to visit their loved ones. Kenzaburo Tsuruda, a scientist and atheist who never believed in any sort of afterlife, is one such departed spirit. As he returns to his home to visit his wife and daughter, unable to interact with them in any way, he knows that he has one year to save his ancestors from becoming Hungry Ghosts--lost souls eternally punished for their transgressions. In order to protect them, he must unravel his family's dark, shameful history stretching back over the past half century.
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| Elisabeth Wilkins Lombardo | |
"It's wonderful and at the same time, very bittersweet," said Giuseppe Lombardo, Elisabeth's husband. The two met in the early 1990s in Kobe, Japan, while Elisabeth was attending university there and shortly after Giuseppe had graduated from college. They got married in 1993 and stayed in Japan until the early 2000s. Elisabeth, who was born and raised in Illinois, went on to become a radio host, television personality and spokesmodel in Japan.
By Giuseppe's recollection, Elisabeth first told him of the idea that would eventually grow to become The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda in the spring of 1994 or '95, while they were wandering around the Todai-ji temple in Nara, Japan. He added that she likely began working on the project more seriously while earning her MFA. Said Lombardo: "I guess it's like having a baby that grew up, all of a sudden."
Author Shonna Milliken Humphrey, who taught in the Stonecoast MFA program when Elisabeth Lombardo was a student, was integral in the efforts to get the book published. She and Lombardo were part of a four-person writing group, recalled Humphrey, that morphed into a kind of "cancer care group" after Lombardo's diagnosis in 2014.
During the next year and a half, as Lombardo underwent treatment, that group grew in size, with friends rallying to support her. When it became clear that Elisabeth wouldn't survive, Humphrey said, those closest to Lombardo made promises to her and to each other. One friend, for example, promised to look out for Lombardo's son. Humphrey promised to find a home for Lombardo's manuscript.
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Giuseppe and Elisabeth Lombardo with their son, Alessandro. |
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"When you make a promise to someone on their deathbed, you do your best to keep it," said Humphrey.
In their efforts to get The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda published, Humphrey and Giuseppe Lombardo teamed up with a band of Elisabeth's writing friends. Together they "mined their contacts" in the industry, and although they were able to get the manuscript into the hands of prominent editors at major publishing houses, they found the "universal message" seemed to be that there was not a lot of sales potential in a first-time novelist who was deceased. Faced with that response, they began looking into cooperative publishing models. They still wanted a curated editorial process, and eventually found their way to She Writes Press.
Author Suzanne Strempek Shea, a longtime friend of Elisabeth and another one of her teachers at the Stonecoast MFA program, took part in the search for a publisher and consulted with Humphrey throughout. She said it was an "honor" to help find a home for Kenzaburo Tsuruda, but also called the process surreal.
"All along the way, I just kept thinking, and keep thinking, how if things were otherwise, Beth would be doing it all--should be doing it all," said Shea. She added that she did not decide to help simply because it was a "nice" thing to do, saying: "It's first and foremost fine writing, and I believe with all my heart that Beth and her work would have gone on to great recognition."
At the launch event on October 2 and subsequent events later in the fall, Elisabeth's friends and family will gather to celebrate her life and her work, with several of her friends slated to read from The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda.
"It was really hard to relive everything," said Giuseppe Lombardo, of the search for a publisher. "But it's been wonderful to see this book flourish." --Alex Mutter