Biography
Shortly after the end of World War II, Sam returned to California and eventually established himself in the gardening and landscaping trade in the Los Angeles area.
After Sam married May in Hiroshima in 1960, the couple made their new home in Altadena and then South Pasadena, where Naomi and her younger brother Jimmy grew up and attended secondary school.
Naomi received her bachelor’s degree in international relations from Stanford University and studied at the Inter-University Center for Advanced Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo. She also spent three months as a volunteer work camper in Ghana, West Africa.
She was a reporter and editor of The Rafu Shimpo (LA Japanese newspaper) during the culmination of the redress and reparations movement for Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes during World War II.
Biography
During her tenure as editor, the newspaper published a highly-acclaimed inter-ethnic relations series after the L.A. riots. Naomi left the newspaper in 1996 to serve as a Milton Center Fellow in creative writing at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas.
After returning to Southern California in 1997, she began to edit, publish, and write books. She edited Green Makers: Japanese American Gardeners in Southern California (2000), published by the Southern California Gardeners’ Federation.
She then authored two biographies for the Japanese American National Museum, An American Son: The Story of George Aratani, Founder of Mikasa and Kenwood (2000) and A Taste for Strawberries: The Independent Journey of Nisei Farmer Manabi Hirasaki (2003).
Biography
She also compiled a reference book, Distinguished Asian American Business Leaders (2003), for Greenwood Press and with Dr. Gwenn M. Jensen co-authored the book, Silent Scars of Healing Hands: Oral Histories of Japanese American Doctors in World War II Detention Camps (2004) for the Japanese American Medical Association.
Under her own small press, Midori Books, she has created a book for the Southern California Flower Growers, Inc., A Scent of Flowers: The History of the Southern California Flower Market (2004).
Other Midori Books projects include Fighting Spirit: Judo in Southern California, 1930-1941 (co-authored by Ansho Mas Uchima and Larry Akira Kobayashi, 2006).
Summer of the Big Bachi (Bantam/Delta, 2004) was Naomi’s first mystery; it was a finalist for Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize and nominated for a Macavity mystery award.
Biography
Gasa-Gasa Girl, the second Mas Arai mystery, received a starred review from Booklist and was on the Southern California Booksellers’ Association bestseller list for two weeks in 2005.
Snakeskin Shamisen, the third in the series, was released in May 2006. In April 2007 it won an Edgar Allan Poe award in the category of Best Paperback Original.
The third Mas Arai book was followed by Blood Hina, Strawberry Yellow, Sayonara Slam and Hiroshima Boy, all currently published by Prospect Park Books.
The seventh and final Mas Arai mystery, Hiroshima Boy, was nominated for an Edgar Award in the category of Best Paperback Original, an Anthony and a Macavity.
Biography
Naomi also has two books in her Officer Ellie Rush bicycle cop series, Murder on Bamboo Lane, winner of the T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award, and Grave on Grand Avenue.
Her series set in Hawaii featuring Leilani Santiago is connected to the world of Ellie Rush. The series begins with Iced in Paradise.
Her only book for younger readers, 1001 Cranes (Delacorte), received an honorable mention in Youth Literature from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association.
Nonfiction books include the multiple award-winning Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor (Angel City Press), co-written by Geraldine Knatz, and Life after Manzanar (Heyday), co-written by Heather C. Lindquist.
Naomi has also curated exhibitions at Descanso Gardens and the Los Angeles Maritime Museum.
Biography
Naomi and her husband Wes make their home in Southern California. Naomi served as chapter president of the Southern California chapter of the Mystery Writers of America in 2010.
Publications
Mas Arai series
Summer of the Big Bachi. 2004.
Gasa-Gasa Girl. 2005.
Snakeskin Shamisen. 2006.
Blood Hina. 2010.
Strawberry yellow. 2013.
Sayonara slam. 2016.
Hiroshima boy. 2018.
Ellie Rush series
Murder on Bamboo Lane.2014.
Grave on Grand Avenue. 2015.
Leilani Santiago series
Iced in paradise: A Leilani Santiago Hawai'i mystery. 2019.
Publications
Other fiction
1001 Cranes. Random House Children's Books. 2008.
Clark and Division, 2021.
South Central Noir, 2022.
Clark and Division
Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award
Winner of The Lefty Award for Best Historical Novel
A New York Times Best Mystery Novel of the Year
A Parade Magazine 101 Best Mystery Books of All Time
A Washington Post Best Mystery and Thriller of the Year
Videos
From Densho (pick up at 3:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwFgvGVup74
Janmdotorg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kxd3bFmXkU
The Book Report Network
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_FH3j4ctcU
Poison Pen Bookstore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRhZyyiHmgI
Cast of characters
Ito family
Parents: Gitaro and Yuri Ito
Sisters Rose and Aki
Aki's colleagues at the Newberry Library
Phillis Davis, Black, brother is wounded soldier
Nancy Kowalski, Polish
Rose's roommates
Chiyo and Louise, Kathryn joins them to replace Rose, Tomi has left
Harriet Saito, lives in same building, works with Douglas for the War Relocation Office
Cast of characters
Roy Tonais, had worked for the Ito family at the produce stand in Tropico before internment at Manzanar
His friends: Hammer (Hajimu), Manchu, Ike, medical student
Art Nakasone: young man Aki meets at cemetery. By the end of the novel, they are engaged and he has been drafted.
Aunt Eunice, sister Lois, who visits neighbors Elaine and Betty, also a victim of the rapist
Sergeant Graves—initially a seemingly sympathetic detective who listens to Aki's questions about Rose. Ultimately identified as the police office on the platform at the railway station with Rose. He's been blackmailing her about the abortion, she can't pay, and jumps to save her family the shame.
Map
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1U5enO2cvLDptWDOnWVdcLZuimG0&ll=41.90306315679352%2C-87.6308681448546&z=17
Questions for discussion
As the author said in the interview, this novel is narrated from a first person point of view; that is, the story is told in Aki's words and through her perspective.
What's the effect on us as readers?
Questions for discussion
We travel with the characters in this novel through a couple of communities, beginning with Tropico, although we see it only briefly, then to Manzanar, and finally to Chicago, where most of the novel takes place.
Within Chicago, Aki mixes with a diverse group of people. How would you characterize these communities and their treatment of Japanese Americans?
Questions for discussion
As a genre, this novel has been definted as mystery, historical fiction, historical mystery, as well as thriller and suspense.
Does one of these genres dominate?
Questions for discussion
How would you characterize the typical Japanese American family, as depicted in this novel?
Again, as the author said in the interview, this is the voice of a Nisei woman, Aki, the child of immigrants, whereas her mother is Isei, Japanese born.
Are there generational differences evident?
Questions for discussion
Almost all of the characters in this novel had been interned at a camp during the war. We see the Ito family, briefly, before that event, and much more fully afterwards. How has the internment affected them?
Questions for discussion
Is this another of those historical events largely forgotten or unreported in American history?
Is Naomi Hirahara following in the footsteps of so many women writers who bring this overlooked history to light?
Breakout room question
How did you like the ending?
Rose was raped by Kienzo, who delivers ice, as one of a series of rapes. She became pregnant, got an abortion, was being blackmailed. Ultimately she commited suicide to keep that shame secret.
Aki has fallen in love with Art Nakasone, they are engaged, but he's been drafted. She jeopardized her friendships with co-workers at the Newberry Library to find the abortionist, but has reconciled with them, quit the library job, and applied for nursing school. She has told the Nakasone family about Rose and what she has done to find the truth.
Aki confronted the rapist, her father beat him, but he escaped, and the staff at the hotel hasn't seen him, but will keep on alert. Sergeant Graves and his colleagues have been arrested, thanks to a newspaper article. And the abortionist was also arrested, earlier in a raid.
So, what is resolved at the end of the novel, and what has not been?
Conclusions
So why this book?
Among the genres, this is primarily historical fiction, with a mystery thrown in. While the mystery is solved, some readers might find it "forced" or "contrived." But as an historical novel, it quite successfully opens our eyes to the plight of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, and more specifically focuses on the consequences of that incarceration as they attempted to re-build their lives, with little that they had once had.
So, this is one of those parts of history that's been overlooked, forgotten, shoved aside.
And this is a woman writer trying to find a voice from an emerging culture, like the Blacks from the South in America, like the Scottish when freed from British dominion, and like the Australians, throwing off the British legacy in favor of their own voice.
Like writers from all emerging cultures, they struggle and may not be initially successful. But we need to listen to their voices and read their words, even if the voice is a bit angry and the language isn't quite polished. And we need to listen and read particularly if they reveal a piece of our less glorious history that we'd rather forget.
This is of course what Kate Grenville discovered with The Secret River.
And this is the voice of Black trainers and groomsmen that Geraldine Brooks wrote about in Horse, and the voice of Shakespeare's wife in Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet. As Shakespeare gave a name and a face to his lost son in the play Hamlet, this novel was given the forgotten, overlooked, and ignored Anne a name and a face.
And perhaps even the voice of Kristin Hannah as she evolves from romance writer to literary novelist in The Nightingale.
Next week
Back to Australia and its literary history
Week after
Resurrection Bay