In these buoyant and inventive stories, Yamashita transfers classic tales across boundaries and questions what an inheritance―familial, cultural, emotional, artistic―really means. In a California of the ’60s and ’70s, characters examine the contents of deceased relatives’ freezers, tape-record high-school locker-room chatter, or collect a community’s gossip while cleaning the teeth of its inhabitants. Mr. Darcy is the captain of the football team, Mansfield Park materializes in a suburb of L.A., bake sales replace balls, and station wagons, not horse-drawn carriages, are the preferred mode of transit. The stories of traversing class, race, and gender leap into our modern world with wit and humor.

I. Sansei
The Bath
The Dentist and the Dental Hygienist
A Gentlemen's Agreement
Bombay Gin
Borges & I
Kiss of Kitty
Indian Summer
Colono:Scopy
KonMarimasu
Sansei Recipes
A Selected L.A./Gardena J.A. Timeline
II. Sensibility
Shikataganai & Mottainai
Giri & Gaman
Monterey Park
Emi
Japanese American Gothic
The PersuAsians
Omaki-san
J.A. Cheat Sheet
Afterword: Sansei Janeite