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Ryka AokiA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Katrina Nguyen is a transgender teenage girl from an abusive home. Bruised and beaten, she runs away in the middle of the night and boards a bus to Los Angeles. On the bus, she falls asleep holding her precious violin.
Famed violin teacher Shizuka Satomi arrives in Los Angeles, her hometown, having flown in from Tokyo. Her housekeeper, Astrid, urges her to rest. Shizuka is eager to see Ms. Grohl, who may potentially be “the seventh.”
Shizuka has taught six incredibly talented students. All became stars in the violin world only to die in tragic anguish. Shizuka has accordingly earned the nickname “the Queen of Hell.” Now, over a decade since her last student, Shizuka is still seeking someone worthy to be her seventh. At a competition, she watches a talented young violinist, Tamiko Grohl, perform. Afterward, Tamiko tells Shizuka that she wants to be just like one of Shizuka’s former students, but Shizuka tells her, “No. You don’t,” and leaves.
At home, Shizuka tells Astrid that the Grohl girl isn’t the one. At a koi pond in the backyard, Shizuka meets with the demon Tremon Philippe, who appears as a well-dressed, toad-like man. Tremon reminds her that only one year remains to fulfill her contract to deliver seven souls to Hell.
Lan Tran and her family have moved into Starrgate Donut, an old donut shop in Los Angeles. The shop was renamed “Starrgate Donut” (with two r’s to avoid a lawsuit) because of its Stargate arcade games. Unbeknownst to the community, Lan and her family are alien refugees who fled a collapsing Galactic Empire. They chose Starrgate Donut because of the giant donut sculpture on top of the building, which Lan plans to turn into a stargate. The family constructs an expansive underground base beneath the shop to store their starship. Rather than cook donuts, they use their ship’s replicator to duplicate perfect donuts. Other than Lan, the Tran family consists of her eldest daughter, Shirley, who is a holographic projection of a sentient computer program; her teenage son, Markus, who is a brilliant engineer; her precocious twins, Windee and Edwin; and Aunty Floresta, a warm and caring older presence in the family. Lan is very protective of her children, but she tends to be somewhat emotionally distant, treating them as a crew more than a family.
While driving through Los Angeles, dwelling on her elusive seventh student, Shizuka suddenly has a terrible need for a bathroom. She pulls into Starrgate Donut, and despite Shirley’s reluctance, Lan lets Shizuka use their bathroom. Shizuka and Lan become smitten with each other at first sight. Shizuka orders an “Alaska Donut” and eats half, reminiscing about her childhood. After Shizuka leaves, Lan wonders what possessed her to let the woman use their bathroom.
Katrina arrives at the home of Evan, a film student who previously offered to let her stay with him. It’s not a warm reception; Evan admits he didn’t actually expect her to show up and asks her to come back later. Katrina wanders into El Molino Park and falls asleep on a bench, hugging her violin. Shizuka, arriving at the same park, spots Katrina and realizes she’s a runaway. She wakes Katrina, offers her the other half of the donut, and encourages her to play her violin. Katrina plays a piece by Schradieck from a common practice book of violin techniques, and as she plays, Shizuka has another flashback to her childhood. Katrina, in turn, remembers finding the Schradieck book at a used bookstore and discovering a teacher’s encouraging notes in the margins. Shizuka asks who taught her, and Katrina admits she doesn’t have a teacher. Shizuka asks to see Katrina’s violin and plays the same piece with a level of skill that shocks Katrina. After a short time, though, Shizuka has to stop, appearing almost sick. Shizuka offers to teach Katrina; though Katrina wishes to accept, she declines, fearing the cost of lessons. Shizuka gives her a business card and asks her to come visit or meet her in the park again next week.
Katrina lives with Evan for a while, but he and his friends take advantage of her inability to stand up for herself. Shizuka returns to Starrgate Donut for another Alaska Donut hoping to recreate the circumstances in which she met Katrina. Katrina is the seventh student, and Shizuka is frustrated at not having established contact with her. She’s also hoping to see Lan again. Lan is too shy to talk until Shirley pushes them into an awkward conversation.
Katrina tries to look Shizuka up, but she cannot find any recordings of Shizuka’s performances. Evan corners Katrina in the bathroom and forces himself on her.
These first chapters introduce our three main protagonists—Katrina, Shizuka, and Lan—as they all converge on Los Angeles. Each of them is running from something in their past: Katrina is fleeing her abusive parents; Shizuka is running from the contract she made with Tremon Philippe as her time is running out; and Lan is running from the Galactic Empire. The motif of music runs throughout these early chapters too, with Aoki drawing on not only music itself but also aspects of the music world and its internal politics.
Shizuka’s characterization is drawn most vividly in these chapters. She is the “Queen of Hell” who has remorselessly condemned six former students to Hell in exchange for her own soul’s freedom. Yet, in spite of this cruelty, she does not seem to be an evil person. Her flirtations with Lan are innocent and awkward, and her first instinct on meeting Katrina is to treat her with empathy. While Katrina spends her first few pages being scrutinized, commented on, and judged by nearly everyone around her, Shizuka immediately treats her as an ordinary girl. She offers Katrina food and encourages her to play her violin, showing kindness that Katrina has not received from anyone else. This introduction of Shizuka’s character, with its contrast between people’s perception of her and her actual behavior, foreshadows The Inevitability of Change and Transition; Shizuka already has the capacity, if not the will, to transform herself and her situation.
The introduction of Katrina’s life, in line with Katrina’s current perspective, emphasizes endless anxiety and pain. She has a broken rib from her abusive father, which never gets a chance to properly heal, hinting at The Influence of Parents on Children, albeit in a negative light. Evan, someone she thought she could trust, turns out to be a manipulative opportunist. He and his friends put on a façade of liberal beliefs while making subtly racist remarks about Asian people, and they take advantage of Katrina’s passivity. Her stay in the house culminates in Evan assaulting her in the bathroom, calling it “a way to help with the rent” (50). Katrina’s dignity as a person is continuously degraded in a multitude of ways by everyone around her, which highlights the difference in how Shizuka treats her. Katrina’s low start, especially in self-confidence and self-acceptance, provides a good foundation to showcase The Transformative Power of Music; the Katrina at the end the novel will contrast sharply with the present Katrina.
Although not a major character, Tamiko Grohl acts as a mirror-counterpart to Katrina. While Katrina has lived a difficult life and has not received any formal training, Tamiko has been raised in privilege and has studied under a prestigious teacher. Tamiko seems like the obvious choice for Shizuka’s seventh student, “poised and engaging, technically near flawless” (16). But though Shizuka is not yet sure what she’s looking for, she knows Tamiko is not the one. When Tamiko tells Shizuka that she dreams of being just like one of her former students, Kiana Choi, Shizuka looks her in the eye as she tells her, “No. You don’t” (16). As we learn later, Tamiko realizes in this moment that the stories about Shizuka are true, “[f]or in those eyes was the fire that would kill for her students, or kill them herself. Such gorgeous cruelty. Her students…loved, betrayed, torn open, and displayed…oh…How incredible…It should be her turn now” (183). Tamiko is so desperate for fame and success that she is not only willing, but eager, to sell her own soul. In some ways Tamiko is an image of a young Shizuka prior to making her deal with Tremon. Indeed, at the end of the book, Tremon seeks Tamiko out to offer her a similar deal. Tamiko represents the overly polished, fame-obsessed side of the music world, more concerned with prestige than with originality. In contrast, Shizuka recognizes Katrina as someone who is unpolished but has the potential to create music with genuine life in it: “What the girl held […] was a mere beginner’s instrument—but echoes of hatred, of insanities, of melodies one sings only when one has survived emanated from her just the same” (37). The unique spirit of Katrina’s music is born from her experiences as an abused transgender runaway, establishing one of the novel’s major themes of Identity and the Struggle for Self-Acceptance.
The tone of these first chapters is a slightly jarring mix of tragic and comedic. Juxtaposed with Katrina’s grim story is the absurd revelation that the Tran family are alien refugees running a donut shop, planning to turn the giant donut sculpture into a stargate. Shizuka, too, is introduced as an imposing, cold-hearted, somewhat sinister figure in her first chapters, but the third chapter sees her comedically singing praises to the heavens as she pees in the Starrgate Donut bathroom, then feeling flustered over “Donut Lady’s starry, faraway eyes” (29). The lighthearted tone of the scenes between Shizuka and Lan is a welcome reprieve from the dark tone of Katrina’s scenes, but the suffering Katrina goes through is an important element of her character that she will later learn to channel through the violin.