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<Story>
In three different countries, three women live their own lives. In India, Sumita is an untouchable in the social class in India. From her mother’s desire to educate her little daughter, they escape from their town. In Italy, Julia helps a hair processing company run by her parents. Her father's accidental death left her on the verge of bankruptcy, and left her with managing the company. Her mother says that Julia should marry to a wealthy man to solve the situation, but she is fascinated by a foreigner she met on the nearby beach. Sarah, a single mother and a lawyer in Canada, is about to be promoted to the first female managerial position at an urban law firm, but she is diagnosed and notified of cancer. She keeps hiding that fact, but her co-workers, who happen to find out about Sarah’s cancer, change their attitudes and Sarah’s promotion goes to her junior to whom Sarah has been looking after. These women who are in difficult life situations naturally tackle and solve their problems as their lives go on. The story unfolds the lives of three women that the fate of the three women is connected through "hair."
<Discussions at the book club>
"The readability of the book from the beginning was excellent, for example, the sight at an Indian train station that I have never been to, and the seaside where Julia meets an Indian man in Italy, and so forth, were real. It was strange that these scenes created movie-like images in my heart, perhaps because the author is from the film world. All three women have various levels of suffering, but each woman finds her own way to move on."
"Humans often naturally find a breakthrough in life, and this book has symbolized it. Sumita's daily life seems like a life-and-death situation, like the current situation in the Middle East with an outbreak of the war. Although I could not remember while reading the book, I knew that Bill Gates talked about improving sanitary situations of toilets and water supply in India. Sumita's family, untouchables for generations, has been cleaning the restroom without using gloves. I hope that there will be less risky work such as this in India in the future. When I talked to a male friend about this, surprisingly he responded that the charity of improving the restrooms and sewerage situations in India by Bill Gates is not good because the people in that class will eventually lose their job thus it is meaningless.
Finally, the connection of three women in the story develops that "Sumita sold her hair, Julia processed the hair and Sara put it on after her chemo treatment.” At last, the story made me think, “Ah ha! I see!” and left warm and positive feelings in my heart.”
"The story of three women living in three different foreign countries was a nice story that was finally connected by “hair.” Reading the story was as if I was watching a movie, skillfully spinning the worries coming from discrimination and traditional values, and courageous behaviors. The environment of Sumita living in India is the harshest, but the courage of the three women to leave their own environment behind left me very refreshing feeling when I finished reading the book.”
"When I read this book, it was just in the middle of the "MeToo movement." The three women in the book were not fighting against men, but they were fighting against the environment and circumstances in which they were placed and lived.”
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