Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Jamie Ford
Title: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Author: Jamie Ford
Publication: January 27th, 2009
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Summary:
1986, The Panama Hotel.
The old Seattle landmark has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made a startling discovery in the basement: personal belongings stored away by Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II.
Among the fascinated crowd gathering outside the hotel stands Henry Lee who, as the owner unfurls a distinctive parasol, is flooded by memories of his childhood.
He wonders if by some miracle, in amongst the boxes of dusty treasures, lies a link to the Okabe family, and the girl he lost his heart to so many years ago.
My Review:
Lou's mind stars: ✭✭✭✭✭
This is an historical fiction going back and forth between the “years of war” (1942-1945) and the newer times (1986), relating the story of a man of Chinese origins and a woman of Japanese origins, both American but guilty of being ‘foreigners’ in those difficult times because of the color of their skin.
I really like the way it goes from 1986 to 1942 all the time. It gives us readers a nice perspective of what is really going on in this story. I know it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but to me, it works very well.
“As he left the hotel, Henry looked west to where the sun was setting, burnt sienna flooding the horizon. It reminded him that time was short, but that beautiful endings could still be found at the end of cold, dreary days.”
The writing has the slowness of Asian movies. Details are laid out one after another, sometimes not really making sense but in the end, you put the pieces of the puzzle together and everything becomes clear. This is the thing I love when I read, a rhythm I only find in Asian literature usually.
In these pages, you get to understand more what happened to the Japanese living in America during World War II and it is not better than what happened to Jewish people. Being send in internment camps, bared of their rights, this is all so revolting. It is not something that is talked about a lot but I am glad some authors dare to do so. People need to know more about this period of time. Americans were no better than Germans during the war.
The descriptions are well done and make me feel like I’m strolling the streets of old Seattle along the characters of this story.
I’m particularly touched by Henry and Keiko, Sheldon too is a good person and in a way, I grew fond of Mrs Beatty, who’s not a character you will find likeable at first.
This book is a little gem, bitter-sweet like its title. A beautiful story that pulled at my heart.
