Mori's two novels, Shizuko's Daughter and One Bird, are fictionalized accounts of the turmoil Mori herself experienced as a young girl coming of age after having been abandoned by a loving mother. Shizuko's Daughter is autobiographical, and tells the story of Yuki, whose mother Shizuko commits suicide, and One Bird tells the story of Megumi, whose mother leaves home and leaves her daughter behind. Both of these mothers are unable to cope with life as a wife in Japanese society, and both of these daughters feel restricted in such a society and must struggle with their own feelings of displacement while they strive to achieve an identity in the face of devastating loss.

Mori's book of essays, entitled Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures, serves as a commentary on Japanese social life and a comparison of how the social mores differ...