A Japanese Heroine in Extraordinary Times

Sometimes one comes across a work of nonfiction that is so engrossing and engaging that it can stop time’s passage. Exceptional history has this power, pulling the reader in and rendering relatable what might initially appear to be alien and all too far away. It can build bridges of understanding, fueled by curiosity and research. History of this mettle changes minds, redirects students’ course of study, and lives outside of the page and decades after publication. Amy Stanley’s Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World is that kind of work, a window on a distant world.

Stanley is a professor of history at Northwestern University. An accomplished academic with deep expertise in Japan, she wrote Stranger for a less-informed public. What, after all, do most of us know about Japan in the first half of the nineteenth century? These are the years before Admiral Perry “opened” Japan to the west – a problematic concept on so many levels. And if we imagine that we have some basic knowledge of samurai and shoguns, it is often through the lens of Hollywood or historical fiction. What Stanley does in this book is open the reader’s mind to a culture that is distant, exotic, and still – in her carefully crafted prose – accessible.

The subject of the biography is a woman named Tsuneno, the child of a Buddhist priest. Tsuneno was born in 1801 in a rural part of western Japan, the Echigo province. Tsuneno and her family were literate, like many other Japanese, and extensive letter writers. They had some money and education. One of Tsuneno’s letters was posted on a scholarly website and Stanley, reading it, became obsessed with learning more about the woman. Tsuneno led a messy, rebellious life. She had aspirations, plans and courage. Some of her choices turned out well and others, less so. Tsuneno was not a political or major cultural figure, but her needs, her story, and her life dominated her family’s letters. Her very lack of fame speaks to what makes her all the more special.

Curiosity piqued, Stanley set about mapping Tsuneno’s family’s correspondence, assiduously tracking down the people, their lives, and tons of details. From these she built a biography, a history of the family, the region, and the period. From the the weather – Echigo shut down during the winter because of heavy snow – to the clothing, from the pawnshops to tax structure to the danger of fires in the city, Stanley crafts a comprehensive picture of what life was like in early 19th century Edo and Echigo. Edo figures prominently, at the time and over the centuries. It was a city of opportunity, culture, power and danger. It transformed into Tokyo, but remnants of Edo can still be found.

As for life in Edo in the early 1800s, concerns then and there remain familiar: having enough money, status and agency, how to navigate family dramas, the importance of marriage and position, finding friends and love. Stanley makes certain, too, that we know what was different. It is important not to assume certain set rules or practice. Tsuneno, for example, was divorced three times and was able to move to Edo as an unmarried woman. Family honor, however, was always a major concern.

Stanley is generous with the subjects of her study, giving them full consideration and appreciation. All of this is set against the larger shifts aligning to change Japan. Foreign influence was at Japan’s door and significant economic challenges were challenging shogunate structures. While people at the time did not know it, their way of life was about to change in significant ways. It is a powerful message, something that once read, felt and considered, stays with you. All it takes is a little time to read, reflect and imagine.

Stranger in the Shogun’s City is truly an exceptional book.

David Potash

February 22, 2026 Reviews

The Nine: Proof of Hope

How does one – and when can one – wrestle with the monstrosities of the Holocaust and World War II? I circle around it, with a book or movie here or there, but rarely for longer stretches of time. In-depth study can be devastating, calling into question the very nature of what it means to be human and our collective future. I find it all encompassing and often too much to process. But avoiding it is no solution. Recent political violence and hateful rhetoric have elevated the need to return to the subject, which is never all that far away – if we listen attentively.

Amid the overwhelming number of titles and perspectives, a recent non-fiction work is worth your time and consideration. Gwen Strauss, a poet and children’s book author, recently wrote the story of her great aunt’s escape from an end-of-the war death march. The Nine is dramatic history at a personal level, linked to a much larger and terrifying narrative. It humanizes heroism and horror.

We do not know the full extent of the resistance in Europe during World War II. Many fought the Nazis, risking torture and death. Some of their stories have been recorded and many have not. Survivors of the conflict often sought to avoid dwelling in darkness, instead seeking a new start after the war. Survivor guilt, complicated choices and issues of identity and gender further worked against retelling the story of resistance at scale. A chance discussion over lunch connected Strauss with her great aunt through marriage, Helene Podliasky, and her story of resistance and survival. Without the intervention, we would never know. At the social gathering Podliasky mentioned that she had escaped from Ravensbruck, the Nazi concentration camp for women, with eight others who fought in the resistance.

Strauss took notice, but it took time for her to begin to look more closely into the history. Jews were only some of the prisoners who held at Ravensbruck. The camp held political prisoners, sex workers, Roma, communists, and women from all over Europe. Those that Germany considered to be political or military threats were often sent there. In the camp prisoners worked as slaves, were tortured, subject to medical experiments, and murdered en masse. More than 132,000 were held in Ravensbruck during the war. It truly was a hell on earth. After the war there were trials and publicity, but systematic study emerged over decades.

Strauss followed up the lunch with an interview. While Podliasky said that she did not see much point in recounting her story, she did – in detail. Strauss took extensive notes and was driven by to learn more. Podliasky joined the Resistance in 1943. She was twenty-three then, a brilliant young engineer who could speak five languages. Captured and tortured in 1944, Podliasky was shipped to Ravensbruck where day-to-day survival was never certain. At the camp, she found an old friend from school named Zaza. As Strauss’s research continued, she came across a book by Suzanne Maudet, who wrote an account from Zaza about her escape from the camp with Podliasky and the seven other women. Through more research, tracking down relatives and working in archives, the story came together.

The Nine is Strauss’s history of the nine women, each imprisoned in Ravensbruck for resistance to the Nazis. The women took on a treacherous ten-day trek to find freedom and safety with the American Army. As the Allies advanced through Germany, Nazi leadership accelerated the killing of prisoners. They were shot, starved, murdered in large numbers as the Nazis feared the end of the war and accountability. Many prisoners were sent of “death marches” that ended in direct murder or death through starvation or exposure to the elements. On such a group march from Ravensbruck, Podliasky and her eight friends slipped away and hid in a ditch, pretending to be corpses. The dead were ever present and guards did not notice. The nine women carefully slipped further away, finding food and evading threats as they made their way to the front lines. Had they not, they would have been murdered along with hundreds of others. on that march.

Strauss describes the ten-day ordeal in detail, mixing in biography and adding her own work as a relative and researcher. The nine women relied on each other, trusted each other, and all survived, through wile, courage, cleverness and luck. It was extremely dramatic and makes for edge of the seat reading.

The book’s structure calls for careful attention. Each of the women has a different background, a different path to the Resistance and capture, and a different future after the war. Advance knowledge of the contours and timeline of the war makes for an easier read. I referenced maps and the internet to better understand specifics. Even without these additional aids, The Nine resonates as a powerful window into a very dangerous world.

The nine’s teamwork, mutual support, heroism, friendship and inherent goodness stands as an extraordinary counter the darkness all around them. It is wonderful that they were able to survive and quite fortuitous that a talented relative, Gwen Strauss, made it her mission to tell their story.

David Potash

February 19, 2026 Reviews

Kiese’s Heavy – A Memoir of Mass

Reading Kiese Laymon‘s autobiographical memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, was a searing experience. Laymon writes with extraordinary and unusual intensity. This is a powerful book, well worthy of the many awards it received. It is also a complex work, crafted and shaped by an extremely skilled writer who knows how to tell a story.

Laymon, now a professor at Rice University, writes at the border between non-fiction and literature. How does one describe the complexity of a Mississippi childhood impossible to categorize? Beaten regularly, loved dearly, and brilliant amid diffidence and trauma, Laymon navigates Blackness, poverty and agency with a candor that can bring the reader up short. He is unapologetic, yet knows that apologies might be welcome. Central to the narrative and the man’s life is his mother. Laymon’s mom is a Black woman with a graduate degree who has a difficult life. She is a marginalized academic and problematic (to put it mildly) partners. Most importantly to Laymon, she has great aspirations for her son. She is also controlling and violent. The book is addressed to her, yet also to us.

Multiple threads emerge, knotting and unbinding, through the narrative. Weight is the most obvious theme, for Laymon was a very large child. Later, as he moves from college into graduate school, he controls his weight to the point of anorexia. He is both trapped and empowered by his body. Race, similarly, is ever present, as are the ways that others and Laymon see himself. Sometimes we learn more about him through the comments of friends. There are no reliable narrators here, for everyone’s consciousness is shaped, if not distorted. Nonetheless, we come to know Laymon from internal and external clues. My respect for him, present from the beginning of the book, grows into something more than admiration. The skill with which Laymon layers and peels away in the narrative is stunning.

The prose is beautiful.

Heavy well deserves its place of prominence.

David Potash

February 15, 2026 Reviews