What is the main conflict in Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto?

With the English release of Kitchen in 1992, her U.S. publisher gambled a fortune on pre-publication publicity, having posters of the author plastered on walls in major American cities. The book went on to be a major best-seller and "Banana-mania" eventually spread across the globe. Yoshimoto's fans tend to be fanatical in their ardor, exchanging testimonials and gossip about the author on the Internet and anxiously speculating about which novel will be the next one translated into their own language.