08 Apr / Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
When he deliberately decides he is his own man at age 13, Chinese American Henry Lee pledges to wait forever for Japanese American Keiko Okabe, who is one of the 120,000 innocent Americans of Japanese ancestry imprisoned during World War II. Beyond U.S. borders, war is waging, and Henry’s father cannot forget that his ancestral Chinese homeland is being eviscerated by the Japanese Army. Henry and Keiko would have been enemies, but instead as Americans – both born in the same Seattle hospital just months apart – they find forbidden first love.
More than four decades later, when the unclaimed belongings of those imprisoned Japanese American families turn up in the basement of a historic Seattle hotel under renovation, Henry is convinced that some of those abandoned treasures must belong to the Okabes. He’s thrown into a journey back in time … and sometimes, true love does last forever.
Yes, Jamie Ford (who is the hapa great-grandson of a Nevada mining pioneer who arrived in San Francisco from China in 1865!) writes a touching story that’s already made The New York Times bestseller list. Whoo-hoo and big congratulations!
BUT … I have to admit that too many historical and factual errors made for some annoying moments. They start on the novel’s second page … it’s 1986, which means Henry’s son couldn’t possibly have found solace on an online support group after his mother’s death, and even though Bruce Lee was resting peacefully in Lake View Cemetery then, his son Brandon doesn’t arrive until 1993. Those sort of erroneous details could have been easily avoided (not to mention millions of people out there speak Japanese, although you only need one to provide accurate translations, ahem). Maybe we can hope for corrections in the paperback edition? It’s already hugely successful in hardcover – and internationally, too, with foreign rights selling right and left – so a little more thorough editing can only make it more so, right?
Readers: Adult
Published: 2009
This book will definitely be on my personal “Top Ten” list. It gave me the full full range of emotions that I want to experience in a book. The main ingredient for me for the unconditional love between two human beings who, with the help of more love from others, overcame the blindness, cruelty, and indifference in their world to forge an eternal bond. I felt that the author depicted the conditions and attitudes of the times realistically, and those depictions gave me a huge sense of outrage. To me this was a story that definitely could have happened with a number of different results. This kind of experience needs to be part of American literature, so that we can all understand how unfair and inhumane our country was to American citizens during the WWII years. To bring out this history in a compelling story was a remarkable piece of writing by Jamie Ford. Bravo! Author! Author!