Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Here's another book that I had heard about forever and had just never read.  I'm glad I did.

The basics: The novel begins with Henry Lee, a 55ish widower living in Seattle.  Near to where he lives, the old Panama Hotel has been bought and the new owners have discovered the belongings of dozens of Japanese immigrants left behind when they were forced from their homes during the Japanese internment of WWII.  From there, the novel flashes back to the 1940's when Henry was a 12-year-old Chinese boy who fell in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl. Their relationship blooms when they are both "scholarship" students at a hoity-toity private school...basically the only Asian kids in an all-white school.  Henry comes from a STRICT Chinese family whose father despises the Japanese.  Keiko comes from an very Americanized Japanese family...she, in fact was born in America and doesn't speak Japanese.  Henry is forced to hide the relationship from his parents, because they would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese residents of Seattle have begun to be shipped off by the thousands to relocation centers. What follows is the story of what happened to the two and where they ended up in their lives when the world forced them into directions they couldn't stop.

Of course I had heard of the Japanese internment camps during the 1940s but it was nothing that I thought of much beyond what I read in history books.  This book certainly brought it into focus.  What a horrible time for the people who suffered such loss.  The book only touches on a bit of what that experience must have been like...it focused more on the feelings that those separated had to face.  This was a very touching book and one I would certainly recommend to anyone. Great read.