The provided text contains excerpts from the novel, "How to Be an American Housewife" by Margaret Dilloway, interspersing fictional narrative with snippets from an in-universe advice handbook of the same name. The primary narrative follows Shoko, a Japanese woman who marries an American sailor, Charlie, after World War II and immigrates to the United States, detailing her struggles with assimilation, motherhood, and cultural clashes. The narrative features her relationship with her daughter, Sue (Suiko), who journeys to Japan late in the book, seeking reconciliation with her estranged Uncle Taro on behalf of her ailing mother, Shoko. Throughout the text, the fictional advice handbook offers often-rigid and outdated instructions on American customs for Japanese wives, starkly contrasting with the complex realities of Shoko’s life and the challenges faced by her children.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.