Brent has a Ph.D. in American culture. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses the theme of family in Yamamoto's story.

In Yamamoto's "The Eskimo Connection," the narrator, Emiko Toyama, does her best to piece together enough information about Alden Ryan Walunga, her incarcerated pen pal, to create some picture of who he is and what his life is like. Throughout the narrative, the reader is also invited to create a picture of Emiko's life, which seems to revolve around her family. Accordingly, Emiko's interest in Alden is partly focused on what she imagines his relationship is to his family. However, Emiko's interpretation of the information she gathers from Alden's letters is much more optimistic than what the discerning reader may gather about the young man's family relations.

Emiko describes herself as "an...