In Oe's masterpiece of the human condition and family psychology, estranged brothers Mitsusaburo and Takashi have long since left their family home in a remote forested valley on Shikoku, in the south of Japan: Mitsusaburo for work in Tokyo; his younger brother Takashi for the United States, to atone for his part in anti-American student protests. Takashi's return to Japan coincides with a local Korean supermarket magnate's offer to buy the brothers' ancestral storehouse, pitting the brothers against one another and dredging up family histories best forgotten.
