Did you ever wonder what happens to Madame Butterfly’s child after she kills herself at the end of Puccini’s Opera? Butterfly’s Child by Angela Davis-Gardner is the imagined story of the blond haired Japanese boy named Benji, son of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Frank Pinkerton and the geisha Cio-Cio-san, known as Madame Butterfly.

Benji is taken from Nagasaki, to a farm in Illinois with his father and step mother, his true identity concealed, to a life he knows nothing about. He grows up in a small American town where he is treated with a mix of racism by many and unexpected kindness by others. It is a hard life, and he always dreams of returning to Japan one day to find his mother’s family.

I was captivated by the story from the beginning and read it straight through. Davis-Gardner doesn’t disappoint. The novel continues to surprise all the way to the end. It would make a wonderful movie.