Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

I probably wouldn't have read this book if my friend hadn't told me she thought I'd enjoy it.  She described it as "sweet".  Well, I did enjoy reading Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (#105) by Jamie Ford, but I wouldn't call it sweet.  That's too condescending a term for this novel as far as I'm concerned.

The hotel in the title is the Panama Hotel in Seattle (a real place).  It's been boarded up since shortly after WWII when it straddled the edge of  the Chinatown and the Japan Town districts.  When the hotel is bought in the 80s and renovations are begun, the possessions of 37 Japanese families forced into relocation camps were discovered stored in the basement (also a fact).  Henry Lee, who grew up in Chinatown, has just lost his wife of many years after a long battle with cancer.  When he stops by to watch the news conference at the Panama Hotel, he is sure he recognizes the parasol on display as belonging to Keiko Okabe, his best friend during the war years.  The novel weaves together Henry's experiences during those war years when Keiko and Henry were the only non-white students at an exclusive prep school in Seattle, and his father was zealously supporting the Nationalist Chinese cause against the Japanese, and his present day struggles to mend the distant relationship with his own son.  Mix in his black jazz musician friend Sheldon and his brush with fame and fortune, and what happened to the once vibrant Nihonmachi Japanese district of Seattle and you have plenty of material to keep the plot spinning along.  Mr. Ford manages to resolve the plot in a satisfactory way that brings Henry to a new chapter in his life.

Since I grew up in New England, I really didn't know anything about the American concentration camps for those of Japanese ancestry until I was a young adult.  This novel shines a spotlight on racial tensions from a number of different perspectives in a way that is not comfortable for anyone.  But it does give you pause to think, and that's important.  I admired Henry all the more for the way he survived and ultimately thrived.