The Good Daughter

The death of her estranged father made Kumi Taguchi realise how little she had known him and how ambivalent she had been about the Japanese side of her life. In a beautifully written memoir of captivating emotional honesty, the SBS Insight host sets out to find her dad, and herself.

Growing up, Kumi Taguchi thought her father was just difficult: reserved to the point of silence, obsessively frugal, and – after her parents’ divorce – almost entirely absent. At several points, Kumi decided to cut their few remaining ties, each time learning that denying a piece of your identity is no simple task. Still, when her father died, she was far away and Kumi’s feelings about him – and her own heritage – remained tangled.

But just because a parent has gone doesn’t mean they’re absent. Over time Kumi came to understand more about what made her father as he was, including his harrowing experiences as a child in wartime Japan and, above all, the culture she both loved and felt burdened by. She decided to travel to Japan to find the family home, and perhaps lay to rest some ghosts.

In this highly evocative journey of understanding, Kumi explores her divided self: the tension between duty and freedom; the people she’s felt drawn to and lost; and how to find your place when caught between two worlds. The result is a beautifully candid, resonant book about feeling comfortable in your own skin that will speak to the seeker in us all.