ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Many people like a good love story and earlier this year, author Michael Weiss added to that genre with his new book “A Thousand Gates of Prayer.”
The book takes place in the village of Hakone, Japan, where a forbidden love blooms between Miyuki, a young woman deeply rooted in her village’s traditions, and Masahiro, heir to a prestigious Kyoto family. As they grow closer, they find themselves caught between loyalty and longing, tradition and change. When a construction project threatens to erase Miyuki’s village, their romance becomes a public stand, and with the help of an investigative journalist, they uncover a trail of corruption far more dangerous than either imagined.
As Weiss tells it, the inspiration for the book came about in a somewhat odd way.
“My family and I were visiting Japan for the first time, and it's a very beautiful country we'd wanted to visit before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. That original plan got put on hold, and eventually, we were able to make it,” Weiss said. “We drove to Hakone, which is about 90 minutes away from Tokyo, and we all were standing there at the foot of Mt. Fuji and looking at all the different scenery and landscaping, and it was all just so beautiful. I remember saying to myself 'This beauty HAS to be written about,' so that's what led to the idea of the project. Writing the book took me about four months, mostly at night since I have a day job and other obligations, and now it's officially out, and I'm very happy.”
However, Weiss said, the idea for writing a book has been percolating for a little while.
“I worked as a journalist many years ago when I was in my 20s, so I've been a writer for a big chunk of my life. When I turned 50, I decided I wanted to do something new – but not something just for me, I wanted to do something that had more vision, which is bringing different cultures to people through these love stories,” Weiss said. “Love is a very basic and fundamental element of life, whether it's for a spouse or children or extended family, and I wanted to do these stories in a way for people to embrace it as an important value. That idea had been sitting in the back of my mind for many years, and then it was that trip to Japan that really properly triggered me to do this project.”
Weiss said overall, the writing process was enjoyable.
“First off, you have to craft a storyline and think of what you want to have happen and how you want the story to find itself. Developing the storyline and plot was very exciting to me because it takes place in the middle of one part of the Orient versus another part of the Orient,” Weiss said. “The only real obstacle is your own creativity. I also wanted to make the story contemporary and have as much detail and accuracy as possible so I could portray that culture as well and as accurately as I could. In order to do that, I enlisted a Japanese assistant who helped me fine-tune certain points of the story so everything was as accurate and honest as possible so it would feel real to readers. It was very interesting digging into the Japanese culture and learning about it all, because it's so completely different than how I grew up, and it was wonderful digging into the culture and learning so much. Japan is a very progressive country in terms of technological advancements and modern aspects like that, but they also have many, many strong traditions still going strong after so many centuries.”
However, that does not mean there were not some challenges, Weiss said.
“When you're writing dialogue, especially when it's about a relationship between two people, you're mostly following what you know from your own life. But that kind of dialogue is COMPLETELY different when it comes to Japanese, and I have to thank my assistant for helping me with that,” Weiss said. “It was a very interesting and challenging process because I had an idea of what I wanted to have these characters say, but I had to adapt it to what Japanese people would actually say, and I would say that part of the process was about half the battle, so to speak, because again, it's just such a different culture than how I grew up.”
Weiss said he is very excited to see the book officially out and offered encouragement for readers to check it out from their local library or anywhere else they get their books.
“On one hand, it's very, very exciting to have physical, tangible evidence of something I'd only thought about barely a year and a half ago. On the other hand, I'm chugging along and focusing on my vision of other projects – in fact, I'm working on publishing another book right now that takes place in South Africa that's another love story, and I'm working on a third book that takes place in Italy,” Weiss said. “This book is a love story, but it's not JUST about love. Love is just a window to understand how the Japanese society and culture work in terms of that contrast between progression and preserving tradition. And that's not a contrast that's happening JUST in Japan, there are many other cultures where that contrast between progression and tradition is being discussed and debated throughout the world. Even though this story takes place in a certain country, those overall themes are universal, and I would say the same about the other books I'm working on, to a certain extent.”
And Weiss said there are no immediate plans to slow down.
“I want to bring the world together through love, that's something that applies to everyone, not just me. The first part is to create some credibility and build up my name/reputation and a readership base,” Weiss said. “I'm working on establishing some semblance of a rhythm in that regard, and I think the next couple books will be released within the next year, and I'm really excited to see them released along with this one. Then, at some point in the future, through Timeless Love Publishing, which is the online publishing house I've established for this series of books, I want to help support other up-and-coming authors from other corners of the world who want to share their own stories from their cultures. I want to help be a way for those people to bring their stories and vision to life. Eventually, I think one of the core values behind Timeless Love Publishing is the fact that this is an invitation for all of us to open our hearts and dive into stories that talk about these different countries and realize we're not so different after all.”
