Snow Falling on Cedars - bookrastinating.com

Hardcover, 345 pages

English language

Published March 16, 1994 by Harcourt Brace & Company.

ISBN:: 978-0-15-100100-2

On San Piedro, an island of rugged, spectacular beauty in Puget Sound, home to salmon fishermen and strawberry farmers, a Japanese-American fisherman stands trial, charged with murder. The year is 1954, and the shadow of World War II, with its brutality abroad and internment of Japanese Americans at home, hangs over the courtroom. Ishmael Cambers, who lost an arm in the Pacific war and now runs the island newspaper inherited from his father, is among the journalists covering the trial--a trial that brings him close, once again, to Hatsue Miyamoto, the wife of the accused man and Ishmael's never-forgotten boyhood love.

Hatsue and Ishmael, in the years before the war came between them, had dug clams together, picked strawberries in San Piedro's verdant fields, and passed long hours in the secrecy of a giant hollow cedar tree. Now, as a heavy snowfall impedes the progress of Kabuo Miyamoto's trial, …

On San Piedro, an island of rugged, spectacular beauty in Puget Sound, home to salmon fishermen and strawberry farmers, a Japanese-American fisherman stands trial, charged with murder. The year is 1954, and the shadow of World War II, with its brutality abroad and internment of Japanese Americans at home, hangs over the courtroom. Ishmael Cambers, who lost an arm in the Pacific war and now runs the island newspaper inherited from his father, is among the journalists covering the trial--a trial that brings him close, once again, to Hatsue Miyamoto, the wife of the accused man and Ishmael's never-forgotten boyhood love.

Hatsue and Ishmael, in the years before the war came between them, had dug clams together, picked strawberries in San Piedro's verdant fields, and passed long hours in the secrecy of a giant hollow cedar tree. Now, as a heavy snowfall impedes the progress of Kabuo Miyamoto's trial, they and the other participants must come to a reckoning with the past, with culture, nature, and love, and with the possibilities of the human will. Both suspenseful and beautifully crafted, Snow Falling on Cedars portrays the psychology of a community, the ambiguities of justice, the racism that persists even between neighbors, and the necessity of individual moral action despite the indifference of nature and circumstance. (jacket description)

28 editions

Acton reviewed Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Review of 'Snow Falling on Cedars' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

World War II is the backdrop for many a fascinating story, and this is one of them. David Guterson sets his story on a fictional island in Puget Sound and introduces us to a small community where the economy depends mostly on fishing and strawberry farming. The present, urgent story centers around a murder trial, in which Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of killing Carl Heine. It is 1954.

As the trial progresses, the author tells us the family stories of some of the island's residents, especially Kabuo's and Hatsue Imada's. Their families had been respected farmers on San Piedro Island for many years before the Pearl Harbor attack. After that, they were suddenly under the most horrible suspicions. First, policemen visited the homes of every family of Japanese ancestry and arrested men for having "weapons" (tools that all farmers and fishermen on the island had, if they'd all been searched), …

World War II is the backdrop for many a fascinating story, and this is one of them. David Guterson sets his story on a fictional island in Puget Sound and introduces us to a small community where the economy depends mostly on fishing and strawberry farming. The present, urgent story centers around a murder trial, in which Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of killing Carl Heine. It is 1954.

As the trial progresses, the author tells us the family stories of some of the island's residents, especially Kabuo's and Hatsue Imada's. Their families had been respected farmers on San Piedro Island for many years before the Pearl Harbor attack. After that, they were suddenly under the most horrible suspicions. First, policemen visited the homes of every family of Japanese ancestry and arrested men for having "weapons" (tools that all farmers and fishermen on the island had, if they'd all been searched), and not long after, their families were deported to Manzanar. Kabuo and Hatsue were married in Manzanar, and Kabuo joins the US Army shortly afterwards.

One of the reporters covering the story of this trial is Ishmael Chambers, who remembers both Kabuo and Hatsue from school. In fact, Ishmael has always been in love with Hatsue and has his own world of issues. And of course there is Carl Heine's story, and his family's past dealings with Kabuo's father is also important to the plot. (By the way, Hatsue, Kabuo, Ishmael, and Carl are contemporaries, all born in the United States.)

Racial prejudice was always present in this small community, but the war brought it to the fore, and now, ten years later, an American man, a WWII veteran, is once again singled out without reason. Kabuo and his family are faced with another crisis simply because of their ancestry.

It's a riveting story.

Bec

rated it

Sept. 5, 2014

Subjects

Japanese Americans -- Fiction
Trials (Murder) -- Fiction
Journalists -- Fiction
Washington (State) -- Fiction