Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

     Prejudice comes in all forms and this is a book about some of the terrible consequences of the stereotypes, ignorance, cruelty and discrimination that can be engendered by such prejudices. This novel by Jamie Ford tells the story of Henry Lee from the perspective of two times in his life--one when he was 12 years old, at the beginning of WWII, and involved in a forbidden relationship with a Japanese friend, Keiko Okabe, and the second when he is a widower in 1986. In 1942, Henry is enrolled in an all-white school in Seattle because his parents want him to integrate and get ahead in a way that wouldn't happen if he stayed in the all-Chinese schools. They don't seem to understand the daily torments and bullying he must endure not only from the students but also from the teachers. And then one day, a Japanese girl also come to the school, and because she is also a "special student," she is  put to work in the cafeteria at lunch times alongside Henry and they soon become fast friends. Henry's parents, and especially his father, hate the Japanese based on the historical transgressions of the Japanese against China, so they are pleased when the entire population of Japantown, including Keiko's family, are loaded onto trains and shipped to prison camps. Henry finds a way to visit Keiko's family at Camp Minidoka but then loses touch with her until decades later when the basement of the Panama Hotel is opened by a new owner and Henry is confronted with memories of his lost love.
     I am to this day amazed that I graduated from high school in California and never read a word in any of the history books about the internment of Japanese American citizens, most of which took place on the west coast. It wasn't until I started reading children's and YA books that I learned about this shameful episode in our history. Cynthia Kadohata's Kira Kira won the Newbery in 2005 with its account of the continuing prejudices against Japanese Americans after the war and seemingly the floodgates opened for numerous other accounts targeted to children and teens: Kadohata's Weedflower, Allen Say's Home of the Brave, Virginia Euwer Wolff's Bat 6 are some of my favorites.
     This book was enjoyable to me partly because it was set in Seattle, where I lived for 18 years, so I recognized many of the landmarks. The Panama Hotel, which was bought up and renovated in the 1980's, actually existed and was really found to contain the belongings of dozen of Japanese families who had been summarily imprisoned and lost their homes and businesses.  Pioneer Square and Bud's Jazz Records are also real places. The "Author's Note" at the end details the factual elements of her story. 

My Ántonia

      I have always believed that a real benefit of book groups is reading things that are outside one's regular reading routine; so, although I am not in a book group, my friend Dee Stefanelli is and, thanks to her, I have read 3 books I might not have picked up on my own. I have already written about Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Caleb's Crossing. My Ántonia by Willa Cather is the 3rd. One of the things I said I would do when I retired was read some of the classics I had previously missed and now I've started. This is an incredibly moving and heartfelt love story for the land in the middle of America and the immigrants who settled it. These were the first generation Scandinavians and Europeans who homesteaded an often harsh land and brought it under the plow to become the breadbasket of America. The story of Ántonia is told from the adult viewpoint of Jim Burden, now a successful lawyer in New York City,  who came to Black Hawk, Nebraska as an orphaned 10-year old on the same train as 14-year old  Ántonia and her family in the late 1800's. Jim was fortunate in that he came to live with his grandparents who were already successful farmers with a real house. The Shimerda family, of Czech or "Bohemian" nationality, came to live in a large hole in the ground. Due to the dishonesty of their agent, their money bought them only broken down farming equipment and animals and they knew nothing about farming, the father having been a professional musician. They would have starved except for the generosity of neighbors like Jim's grandparents, and yet Mrs. Shimerda and even Ántonia were haughty and critical of these efforts. Mr. Shimerda killed himself out of grief for all he had lost and  Ántonia mourned him all her life. She and Jim were, in spite of their age difference, nearly constant companions and Jim adored her.  After his grandparents leased out the farm and moved to town, some of the "country girls" came to town to work and help out their families financially.  Ántonia became the live-in maid/cook/nanny for the family next door to the Burdens and, although always a hard and cheerful worker, became enamored of the town life and eventually lost her position. After Jim had gone away to college, he no longer saw  Ántonia but kept tabs and learned that she had been engaged, then deserted and left with an illegitimate child. Broken-hearted, she returns to the family farm to work and raise her child, then soon marries a fellow "Bohemian" with whom she builds a successful farm and large family. Twenty years later, Jim reluctantly goes to see her, fearing that circumstances have beaten her down and changed the girl/woman he has idolized through the decades. But  Ántonia has preserved her love of life and restores Jim's faith in the future. 

     Part of what I reflected upon while reading this book is that this has always been a country of immigrants, those whose first language and history and customs are not of this country; they have built America. It dismays me that we continue, as a people, to disregard this truth and discriminate against whichever group is the newest to seek refuge here. The language and passion of this book will vividly recreate the people and the places for the reader and it's well worth taking the trip to Black Hawk.  

Lock Every Door

I was a little bit leery when I started reading this thriller by Riley Sager because I am not a fan of the horror genre. But it turns out that the dark forces in this book are altogether too human, motivated by the usual vices. Jules Larsen has not only lost her job but also her abode after she caught her boyfriend/roommate cheating; so she has been camping on her friend Chloe's sofa for weeks, answering endless want ads with no success. Then she gets an interview to be an apartment sitter in one of New York City's architectural icons, the Bartholomew. It also happens to be the setting for a book that her older sister used to read to her when they were little, Heart of a Dreamer; that was before her sister disappeared, before her parents killed themselves and left her with mountains of unpaid medical bills. In fact, the author of that book is currently a resident of the Bartholomew, although not particularly friendly. The pay for 3 months of work will clear Jules' most pressing debts and give her time to hopefully find a new job; and at least she will be off her friend's couch. The apartment in question is the 12th floor penthouse, facing directly on Central Park. She nicknames one of the building's gargoyles--visible outside a corner window--George. It all seems too good to be true. And it is. The Bartholomew has a bit of a tragic reputation--more than it's share of unusual deaths. When another apartment sitter in the building, Ingrid, tells Jules that she is scared, and that the apartment sitter who preceded Jules in her current apartment disappeared without a word, and then disappears herself, Jules is determined to find Ingrid. She begins to think some shady things are going on and doesn't know who to trust.  It may be that the Bartholomew is a little like the Eagles' Hotel California...you can check in anytime you like, but you can never leave. It was a surprising twist of an ending. Not sure I would seek out any of Sager's other books, but it was an engaging tale.
Fellow book group member found this site about NYC's gargoyles, which play a role in this book:
https://convene.com/catalyst/new-york-city-office-building-gargoyles/
Kirkus was less than laudatory in its review; The New York Journal of Books offers an enthusiastically positive review and a comprehensive plot line than I have done here.