The Tokaido Road

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

First published 1991

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4.4(219)

Japan, 1702. After Asano Naganori is forced to commit seppuku for attacking the court official Kira Yoshinaka, his fictional daughter Kinume—known as Cat—loses the protection of her household. Believing that Kira intends to eliminate the remaining Asano family, she disguises herself as a travelling priest and sets out from Edo along the Tōkaidō road to find Ōishi Yoshio, leader of her father’s former retainers.

Cat’s journey through post stations, temples, pleasure districts and villages becomes both an escape and an education in Tokugawa society. Pursued by a rōnin hired to capture her, she relies on poetry, disguise and the naginata while the former Asano retainers prepare their celebrated revenge. The fictional adventure converges with the Akō Incident, placing personal survival beside the conflicting demands of loyalty, honour and shogunal law under Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.