book
pick
Past meets present
Signed book
gıveaway
Novel explores relationships,
healing power of time
By J. Rentilly
BLAME IT ON the rain, for when
Jamie Ford submitted his debut
novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter
and Sweet, to prospective publishers,
he sent along a Chinese bamboo-and-paper parasol. The parasol
marks a key plot point in the breath-takingly elegiac novel, a generation-spanning narrative that reveals the
lives, loves, struggles and redemption
of Chinese- and Japanese-Americans
coming of age in America’s World
War II internment camps.
Ford captured the imagination
of Jane von Mehren, senior vice
Jamie Ford
president, trade paperbacks and
Modern Library, Random House Publishing Group,
who used the parasol in pitch meetings with her colleagues. “As I described the main character seeing the
parasol he believes belonged to his childhood sweetheart, I opened the parasol in the meeting. There
were audible gasps in the room,” she recalls. “It was
then that I realized this author’s gift as a writer was
his ability to intertwine the events of history with the
drama of human relationships to create stories that
move you even as they teach you about times and
places you hadn’t known about before.”
The 40-year-old Ford came late to the writing
game, having done a long stint in advertising after
being a college art major, where he “basically drew
sweaty naked people all day,” he laughs. But musing
on “the untold stories” of his father and his grandfather, Chinese-Americans during a fraught moment
in American history, led the Montana resident and
father of six to put pen to paper. “My mom was
Betty Crocker white and my dad, who was full
Chinese, was an only child. After he died, I felt cut
off from my heritage, so self-indulgently I began
writing short stories with Asian characters,” Ford
reveals. “These stories were so personal that I didn’t
think anyone would actually care to read them, but
as I began to get feedback from friends and peers, it
was evident that I was mining a vein of history and
culture that was worthy of further digging.”
Ford, who counts science-fiction writers Harlan
Ellison and Orson Scott Card, as well as filmmaker
Cameron Crowe, as influences, expanded his short
stories—their characters, themes and central universe—into the novel that is Hotel on the Corner of
Bitter and Sweet, though he sought a more upbeat
conclusion for his two main characters. “There were
no happy endings for interned Japanese-Americans
after the war, just quiet relief at best, but I really
wanted to find a way to give these characters—who
are a mixture of naiveté and nobility—an actual,
satisfying moment, a much-needed
resolution,” he tells The Connection.
“I did that by setting part of the
novel many years after the camps
were disbanded, when the cultural
dust had settled and those wounds
had healed.”
LAURENCE KIM
Ford always writes with an ending in mind. “It becomes my magnetic north and speeds up the
writing,” he says. “Without it, I lose
my bearings.”
COSTCO HAS 50 signed
copies of Jamie Ford’s
Hotel on the Corner of
Bitter and Sweet to give
away. To enter, print
your name, membership
number, address and daytime phone number on
a postcard or letter and
send it to: Jamie Ford,
The Costco Connection,
P.O. Box 34088, Seattle,
WA 98124-1088. Or send
an e-mail to giveaway@
costco.com, with “Jamie
Ford” in the subject line.
For now, Ford—whose great-grandfather Min Chung adopted
the non-Asian surname, which is,
Ford guesses, “less confusing than a
Chinese kid with the name Kowalski”—is enjoying
the rush of literary praise greeting his novel. He
jokes that his recent success in letters has brought
him a salvo of “paparazzi, bodyguards and a stretch
Escalade,” and that his kids are “forming a coalition
to lobby for a raise in their allowance.”
NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF
ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.
While embarking on his first book tour in early
2009, Ford is also rolling up his sleeves for his sophomore effort, tentatively titled Whispers of a Thunder
God. “If you like Hotel, I think you’ll like this one,”
he says. “All I can say is that in writing it I’ve accidentally woven a tapestry of the most taboo aspects
of Japanese culture, so it’ll either be critically praised
in Japan or burned. I’m hoping for both.”
One can only guess what marketing prop Ford
will employ for his follow-up. C
Purchase will not improve odds of
winning. Open to legal residents
of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico)
who are age 18 or older at the
time of entry and who are current
Costco members. One entry
per household. Entries must be
received or postmarked by March
2, 2009. Winners will be randomly
selected and notified by mail on
or before April 2, 2009. The value
of the prize is $24. Void where
prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal,
state and local taxes. Odds of
winning depend on the number of
eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or Random House
and their families are not eligible.
J. Rentilly is a Los Angeles–based journalist who
writes about film, music and literature.
Send your feedback
on this month’s book to:
discussionquestions@
costco.com.
Pennie’s pick
SOMETIMES IT’S GOOD to think beyond traditional
male-female interactions as love stories. The father-son
relationship in Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter
and Sweet is as moving and powerful a love story as
one can hope to find.
This is an unforgettable debut novel that transports
readers effortlessly to 1940s Seattle, where the city’s
jazz scene is blossoming and the once compatible
Japanese and Chinese communities are now at odds.
Examining the complex and timeless struggles of
friendships, a father-son relationship and true love, this
is a complete novel that will not disappoint.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is available
at most Costco warehouses and Costco.com.
Pennie Clark
Ianniciello
Costco Book Buyer
FRANCE FREEMAN
