What I’m Reading - February 11, 2010

Posted: February 11, 2010 by Cop's Wife in books
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From Publishers Weekly

Ford’s strained debut concerns Henry Lee, a Chinese-American in Seattle who, in 1986, has just lost his wife to cancer. After Henry hears that the belongings of Japanese immigrants interned during WWII have been found in the basement of the Panama Hotel, the narrative shuttles between 1986 and the 1940s in a predictable story that chronicles the losses of old age and the bewilderment of youth. Henry recalls the difficulties of life in America during WWII, when he and his Japanese-American school friend, Keiko, wandered through wartime Seattle. Keiko and her family are later interned in a camp, and Henry, horrified by America’s anti-Japanese hysteria, is further conflicted because of his Chinese father’s anti-Japanese sentiment. Henry’s adult life in 1986 is rather mechanically rendered, and Ford clumsily contrasts Henry’s difficulty in communicating with his college-age son, Marty, with Henry’s own alienation from his father, who was determined to Americanize him. The wartime persecution of Japanese immigrants is presented well, but the flatness of the narrative and Ford’s reliance on numerous cultural cliches make for a disappointing read. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I’d heard about this book off and on for several months, never really knowing what it was about. After it landed on Rainy Day Books’ list of top books from 2009, I went ahead and put it on hold at the library. It took a while as I was not the only one in line for it. And it was well worth the wait. [even though Publishers Weekly seems to disagree.]
Were there a few clumsy parts? Sure. Jumping back and forth from the 40′s to present day [which is 1986 in the novel] makes it almost impossible to be seamless. By and large, however, it was a great read. A little sappy for some [not me], but I really loved the characters of Henry, Keiko, and Sheldon.

I give it 5 out of 5.

Library books:

Moonlight in Odessa : a novel Skeslien Charles, Janet
Outlander Gabaldon, Diana
Hollywood Station : a novel Wambaugh, Joseph
The lost city of Z : a tale of deadly obsession in the Amazon Grann, David
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything Levitt, Steven D.
Book by book : the complete guide to creating mother-daughter book clubs Hudson, Cindy
The black echo Connelly, Michael
The lost symbol : a novel Brown, Dan
I dreamed I married Perry Mason Kandel, Susan
Gregor the Overlander Collins, Suzanne
The last Dickens : a novel Pearl, Matthew
Karma Dunlap, Susan
Hardball Paretsky, Sara
The love dare Kendrick, Stephen
Dial H for Hitchcock Kandel, Susan

Comments
  1. cuethebanjo says:
    February 12, 2010 at 4:22 am

    argh. you always have these interesting reads. i need to set aside time, this is killing me.

    Reply

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