Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is a wonderful book.  It is a work of fiction, based on historical facts, whose characters and the stories they tell seem incredibly real.  Golden, a historian with degrees in Japanese art and history, brings to life the hidden world of geisha.  

The story begins in a little fishing village in Yoroido, Japan in the year 1929.  Chiyo, the main character, is a nine-year-old girl with unique translucent gray eyes.  Her family is very poor. Her father is a fisherman and her mother is terribly ill with bone cancer.  Her sister, Satsu, is six years her senior.      

Chiyo’s life takes a dramatic turn when she and her sister are sold into slavery by her father after their mother’s death.  Satsu is sent to work as a prostitute and Chiyo is sent to the Nitta okiya, a house for geisha.  Chiyo’s life at the okiya is miserable.  Hatsumomo, the working geisha of the house, takes an instant dislike to young Chiyo and plots to destroy her.       

Chiyo perseveres and emerges as an apprentice geisha.  She is now known as Sayuri. Sayuri’s rise to a top geisha is not an easy journey.  It is filled with painful life lessons, lost friendships, competition, the eruption of World War II, and eventually banishment.      

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys powerful, vivid characters.  Golden gives us a unique glimpse into the world of geisha.  I enjoyed reading it and I hope you will, too!

Lisa Faridi is a life-long Mason City resident. She works as a medical assistant at Mercy Family Medicine Residency Clinic.  We thank her for this review.