A heartfelt read that illuminates an important chapter of American history.
A debut novel follows a Japanese American family dealing with the events of World War II.
As he approaches his 18th birthday, innocent and aimless Yoshi Yamaguchi’s largest concerns are his performance on the baseball team and whether his crush will finally notice him. After graduation, he begins working in the family grocery store with his father, a quiet, stoic man with strong political convictions. When Yoshi voices his desire to join the Army (the only military branch open to Japanese citizens), his father flatly rejects the idea. He acquiesces only after America enters World War II, when Yoshi’s mother points out the potential merits of enlisting versus being drafted. But Yoshi’s application is denied on racial grounds. Soon, he and his family are forced to sell their possessions, leave their home, and travel to the Manzanar internment camp (originally known as the Owens Valley Relocation Center). With little information about their future and mindful of the horrors of European concentration camps, the Yamaguchis experience not only the sadness of relocation, but also fears for their lives. Inside the camp, the Yamaguchis struggle to get medical attention for their ailing grandmother. With the little autonomy granted him, Yoshi must make a decision that could affect the rest of his life. The historical aspects of the narrative are well researched, such as the contentious politics of the Japanese American Citizens League. For instance, membership in the JACL was only open to American citizens, excluding many issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants), such as Yoshi’s mother and grandmother. This angers people like Yoshi’s father, who was finally granted citizenship “almost two decades” after his military service in World War I. One of the novel’s greatest strengths is the dynamic between the various Yamaguchi family members. Williams’ writing is generally straightforward and unembellished, but the tale’s incidents often evoke strong emotions. Yoshi’s characterization as a naïve, somewhat awkward young man allows readers to see historic events through the lens of an accessible narrator. Included in the book are several poignant images by debut illustrator McInvale.
A heartfelt read that illuminates an important chapter of American history.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73404-660-1
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
A rollicking soap opera that keeps the pages turning with a surfeit of births, deaths, and surprising plot reveals.
Historical fiction concerning the intricate battles over succession within the family that controls a poor rural county in post–World War I Virginia.
Duke Kincaid owns most of Claiborne County, both financially and politically. A charming, ruthless autocrat, feared yet beloved, he has three acknowledged children by three different wives (not to mention unacknowledged offspring). Shortly after his fourth marriage, the Duke dies unexpectedly. Although pragmatic, street-smart middle child Sallie is his intellectual and emotional heir, the Duke leaves his estate to her emotionally oversensitive half brother, Eddie, because he’s the only boy. Seventeen-year-old Sallie is devoted to Eddie, who's 13, but after he commits suicide she's torn by conflicting loyalties to her weak but lovable stepmother; her father’s scheming but able sister; and her older half sister, Mary, who's next in line to inherit the Kincaid empire but has not lived in Claiborne Country since her parents divorced. Family intrigue plays out against the backdrop of 1920s Claiborne County, where racism is a given, Prohibition is the law, and bootlegging is the main source of income for Blacks and Whites. Staunch prohibitionist Mary goes to war against the bootleggers using an enforcer who employs extreme violence. Sallie wants to support her sister but sympathizes with the bootleggers—her neighbors and tenants—and recognizes that the family's finances depend on trading whiskey. Defining what is moral becomes complicated for Sallie. So does defining family. Tough and independent, Sallie refuses to let womanhood limit her ambitions as she earns the nickname Queen of the Kincaid Rumrunners. History buffs will enjoy the many hints Walls sprinkles to show that Tudor England is her novel’s template (the Duke’s marriage to his brother’s widow; his banished daughter, Mary, and short-lived heir, Edward; the Kincaids’ counselor Cecil, etc.). Television buffs will smile at the Kincaids’ resemblance to the Roys of Succession.
A rollicking soap opera that keeps the pages turning with a surfeit of births, deaths, and surprising plot reveals.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781501117299
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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