A Boy of Old Japan

Japan, 1860. The Tokugawa shogunate crumbles while foreign ships gather on the horizon, and a young samurai boy must find his place in a nation tearing itself apart. Born to a proud clan caught between loyalty to the dying old order and the terrifying promise of the new, he witnesses the rituals of bushido firsthand while navigating a world where his father's sword may be no match for Western artillery. The novel follows his coming-of-age through political intrigue, clan rivalries, and the slow collapse of the only life his family has ever known. Bergen renders the texture of feudal Japan with startling intimacy: the weight of katana, the silence of the tea ceremony, the terrible beauty of a code that demands everything and promises nothing in return. This is a story about what it means to be honorable when honor itself has become obsolete, and what a boy owes to a dying world versus what he might owe to the future.