Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson – Pen/Faulkner Award Winner
Snow Falling on Cedars is kinda’ the type of books I read, but well not quite. While the basic storyline is the murder trial of Kabuo Miyamoto there’s a lot more that to it that sets this Pen/Faulkner Award winning novel apart from a typical book in the mystery genre. The novel provides not only a great trial mystery that keeps you guessing until the end of the book, but it provides a glimpse into the lives of Japanese-Americans during World War II and beyond.
The setting Snow Falling in Cedars is San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound in the state of Washington state. The island is the home of a large Japanese population Kabuo and his family arrived on the island in the early 1900s, working first in the mill and then in the island’s strawberry fields They worked hard and were prospering. In the early part of 1942, Kabuo’s father Zenhichi approached Carl Heine,Sr, owner of the farm where they worked to see if he could purchase seven acres of land. Heine agreed and Zenhichi started making payments. Then came December 7th and the lives of the Japanese-Americans on the island were turned upside down, Soon notice was a given that they immediately had to pack up their world. They were being sent to an interment camp called Manzanar.
Hatsue Imada’s life was altered also, for years she had been seeing the son of the publisher of the town’s paper Ishmael Chambers. They would meet each afternoon in the hollow of an old cedar tree. In December of 1942, she had to make a choice between her Japanese heritage or her love, knowing that her mother could never accept Ishmael, she eventually chose her culture and married Kabuo. Now she was standing by his side at his murder trial, a trial that Ishmael has to cover for his newspaper!!
By 1954, Kabuo was a fisherman who ached to get back the land that his father wanted to buy from Carl Heine, Sr. But when Carl Heine, Jr.now also a fisherman is found dead Kabuo in the waters where Kabuo was fishing. Kabuo becomes a prime suspect for the murder. Snow Falling on Cedars is much more than a murder mystery, as it addresses beautifully the tragedy that befell the Japanese residents of San Piedro Island.
From the Los Angeles Times….
“Haunting… A whodunit complete with courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence and at the same time a mystery, something altogether richer and deeper.”
As I was reading Snow Falling on Cedars, I thought about my own family. My father’s family was from Germany. His mother Charlotte Meyer was born in Dresden in 1903 and his father’s father came from Germany in 1882. Both Charlotte and her father Herman Meyer became US citizens in the early 1940s, for obvious reasons. What struck me was that while Japanese-Americans were rounded up and sent to interment camps nothing similar happened to German-Americans! Again the reason is simple German-Americans look like everyone else!! What could have happened of my mother who was English/Irish wasn’t allowed to date a German boy! Looking Japanese was one of the things that Kabuo had to fight, during his trial. He had to fight not only the evidence but also the jury’s prejudices!
Bottom Line: Snow Falling on Cedars is one of those remarkable books that works on so many levels as a mystery, a love story and a history lesson all wrapped up into one! I loved all of the characters and each level of the book. A few days after finishing the book I found Ed King another of David Gutterson’s books at the Dollar Tree and it now sits on my TBR shelves!! It is certainly a 4 to 5 star okay 4.5 star book for me!!
Book 43 for 2015!
