Library 2026-01-20
Rating: Not rated
Tags: Fiction
Summary
George Duncan is an American
living and working in London. At forty-eight, he
owns a small print shop, is divorced, and lonelier than
he realizes. All of the women with whom he has
relationships eventually leave him for being too nice.
But one night he is woken by an astonishing
sound—a terrific keening, which is coming from
somewhere in his garden. When he investigates he
finds a great white crane, a bird taller than even
himself. It has been shot through the wing with an
arrow. Moved more than he can say, George struggles
to take out the arrow from the bird's wing, saving its
life before it flies away into the night sky.
The next morning, a shaken
George tries to go about his daily life, retreating to
the back of his store and making cuttings from discarded
books—a harmless, personal hobby—when through
the front door of the shop a woman walks in. Her
name is Kumiko, and she asks George to help her with her
own artwork. George is dumbstruck by her beauty and
her enigmatic nature, and begins to fall desperately in
love with her. She seems to hold the potential to
change his entire life, if he could only get her to
reveal the secret of who she is and why she has brought
her artwork to him.
Witty, magical, and romantic,
The Crane Wife is a story of passion and sacrifice, that
resonates on the level of dream and myth. It is a
novel that celebrates the creative imagination, and the
disruptive power of love.