Time in a Tea Crate

In this story of Louis Suzor and his introduction of the motorcar to Japan at the turn of the 20th century, Donna Robinson imagines her great-grandfather's memoir using his journal and family stories backed up with historical research to capture his spirit and enthusiasm for automobiles.Louis Suzor, a Parisian entrepreneur, was compelled by unforeseen circumstances in 1900 to abruptly move his young family to Japan. Undaunted, he embraced the opportunity to use his creativity and skills in the thriving economy of Yokohama. For a man fascinated with automobiles, anything seemed possible. This well documented book weaves family stories, letters, and photographs together with tales of early French automobiles, Japanese urban and rural culture, Siberian fur trappers, ocean liners, caviar merchants, and, finally, the natural disaster that changed Japan's history and a family's life forever. A captivating creative nonfiction story, Time in a Tea Crate crosses thresholds of continents, culture, time, fact, and fiction to tell a story about risks, and resiliency, family, and what we hold close when it appears that we have lost everything.