Novels Now

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Fiction
2009 Ballantine Books
Finished on 1/5/09
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
ARC - Due out on January 27, 2009

Publisher’s Blurb

In 1986, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. The hotel has been boarded up for decades, but now a new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, memories take him back to the 1940s.

At the height of the war, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student, at the exclusive Rainier Academy. They forge a friendship—and an innocent love—that transcend the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family are evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Now Henry is trying to make sense of the past—to explain the actions of his nationalistic father; to bridge the gap between himself and his modern Chinese American son; to confront the choices he made many years ago. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable portrait of a couple whose story teaches us the power of forgiveness.

Jamie Ford is the son of American and Chinese parents and an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. An award-winning short-story writer, he lives in Great Falls, Montana. This is his first novel.

I received this book from the publisher back in August, but didn’t feel compelled to pick it up until after Christmas. What luck that it was my first completed book of the New Year; it’s a winner! I love the time period and location (a bit reminiscent of Gutterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars) and especially enjoy coming-of-age stories, so this was right up my alley. The narrative is set in 1986, flashing back to the years between 1942 and 1945 when Henry and Keiko are in the fifth grade.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is bound to be a popular selection among book groups, particularly those in the Pacific Northwest. I enjoyed the story, although at times thought it read more like a young adult novel than general fiction. The writing is occasionally simplistic and I finished reading the novel without a single lyrical passage to share. And yet, I couldn’t put this book down! I found Ford’s book much more satisfying than Sandra Dallas’ Tall Grass (another coming-of-age novel depicting the internment camps during World War II), particularly enjoying the references to Seattle’s jazz history, including that of Oscar Holden.

Here are a couple of photos from the author’s website. Go here to see more.

VJ Day in Seattle

I’ll be anxious to hear what others think of this debut novel.

From wikipedia:

As a medical term, gigantism can refer to “pituitary gigantism”, which is due to prepubertal growth hormone excess. This is sometimes equated with acromegaly, but more precisely, an excess of growth hormone leads to “pituitary gigantism” (vertical growth) if the epiphyseal plates have not yet closed, but it leads to “acromegaly” (lateral growth) if they have closed.

Even before I emerged from my mother’s womb in 1953, people began warning my mother that the infant she carried was going to be huge.

I really enjoyed this debut novel — particularly the first 3/4 of it. Tiffany Baker has created a very extraordinary character in Truly Plaice. First called a ‘little giant’ by her teacher Miss Sparrow, Truly is the exact opposite of her very petite, pretty, and perfect sister Serena Jane. Teased and humiliated by her classmates and community, Truly actually copes fairly well with her large size. Her genetics have treated Truly unfairly, but there are some positives in her life as well. She has the love of three very special people in her life, and she is thus able to tune out the mean-spirited ones who torment her. Not afraid of hard work either, Truly only sometimes feels sorry for herself and tries to make the best of every situation she’s in. (I always think it’s best not to know too many plot points before reading a book so I’ll stop there to avoid spoilers.)

The book covers the first 35-40 or so years of Truly’s life, and as said previously, I very much enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book. I actually read through the first part very quickly, but I did feel that the last 1/4 of the novel dragged a bit. There are also some ethical decisions made by the characters that are quite controversial, and I’m not quite sure how I stand on those issues myself so my thoughts about the ending are mixed. However, I’ll definitely be looking out for Tiffany Baker’s next book. She is a promising new novelist who knows how to craft unique characters and a unique story.

A special thanks goes to Hachette Book Group for sending me this book for review. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is being released today (January 8th).

2009, 341 pp.

4/5