Jamie Ford-Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

This was a phenomenal story about a topic that we don't hear very often.  I often get into a mode where I can't read anymore WWII novels because it's often a similar tale with a different plot line.  It's not because I'm not interested in the topic or that I don't find the novels engrossing, I am interested in the topic and each novel is, for the most part, very engrossing.  I have Holocaust fatigue.  I've been raised learning about WWII and the Holocaust since as long as I could remember because Hebrew Schools and other Jewish programs have decided that this is the narrative that guides our Jewish story.  This is frustrating to me because this is not what defines us as a people nor should it.  The Holocaust is definitely something that happened and affected the entire world and especially affected the Jewish people but we've had 2,000 years of history prior to that, with other horrific events and we've had nearly seventy years of history occur after that with notable events.

So I was interested to read a WWII novel from another perspective.  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is written through the eyes of a Chinese man, he was raised in Seattle to immigrant parents.  His father especially suffered in China and very much wanted to classify himself and his son as Americans.  In the early 1940's this became increasingly difficult to do because of the war going on and when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, this was near impossible.  Many people didn't take the time to necessarily differentiate between Chinese Americans or Japanese Americans and just saw someone with Asiatic features.

Henry, the Chinese man, as a young boy is sent to a private school in Seattle where he is the only Asian kid. As part of the financial arrangement, he works in the kitchen during lunch.  Relatively soon after he starts, he is joined by another Asian girl, a Japanese girl named Keiko.  Henry and Keiko strike up a friendship and they become very very close.  This is a friendship that Henry doesn't bring home.  His father very much wants Henry to be an American and makes Henry wear an American flag patch so that people know that he truly is an American.

The novel follows the story of the Japanese in Seattle at the time and at a certain point, Keiko and her family are moved to an internment camp in eastern Washington.  Henry doesn't understand this when it seems that Keiko's family is more American than even his own family.  He writes letters constantly to Keiko and they have a correspondence.

The book is told through flashbacks.  At the beginning of the novel we learn that Henry's wife has just died and he has a somewhat difficult relationship with his son.  He learns that they are going to knock down a hotel in what had been the Japanese section of Seattle prior to the war.  In the basement of this hotel, that has been boarded up for decades, the owner finds trunks of belongings from those that were interned.  Henry gains access and seems to be looking for one certain thing.

The story is a beautiful story and one that I would absolutely recommend.  It is a tale of enduring friendship and true love set against an America that most of us wouldn't recognize today.  Nor, really, would we want to.