Jamie Ford | Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Published: May 14, 2009

Like the fragile red and white parasol that unfolds in the opening pages of Montana writer Jamie Ford’s debut novel, the author takes a delicate look at a painful page in American history in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

An aging Henry Lee watches as workers unearth the belongings of 37 Japanese families, left in the basement of Seattle’s Panama Hotel when the owners were forcibly removed from Japantown in 1942 and incarcerated in internment camps for the duration of World War II.

Lee, of Chinese ancestry, grew up wedged between the loyalties and passions of his father and his attraction to a young Japanese girl he met while “scholarshipping” at an otherwise all-white school. His father despised the Japanese, who were waging war on mainland China; Henry, however, is enchanted by his new friend.

But their blossoming love is sundered by war, as Keiko and her family are sent to an internment camp in Idaho, and further doomed by the machinations of his dying father.

Jazz, the vibrant street life of Seattle in the 1940s and the conflicts and loyalties between fathers and sons are woven through this engaging tale of love and loss.

“Ford expertly nails the sweet innocence of first love, the cruelty of racism, the blindness of patriotism, the astonishing unknowns between parents and their children … (in this) vivid picture of a confusing and critical time in American history,” writes Library Journal.

Ford, an award-winning short story writer who grew up near Seattle’s Chinatown, now lives in Great Falls. In an interview with the Associated Press writer Tim Klass, he reports that he's considering a movie deal and is hard at work on a second book. His debut novel was published in January by Ballantine Books and sells for $24 hardcover.

– Kristi Niemeyer