Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book

Hot Search

Snow Falling on Cedars

david guterson

... Show More
In 1954, a fisherman is found dead in the nets of his boat, and a local Japanese-American man is charged with his murder. In the course of his trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. For on San Piedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries - memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and a Japanese girl; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbours watched.

404 pages, Paperback

First published September 12,1994
Literary awards
anthony award, pen/faulkner award for fiction, american booksellers book of the year award, martin beck award, barnes u0026 noble discover prize, 
Places
san piedro island washington, washington (state), pacific northwest, 

This edition

Format
404 pages, Paperback
Published
October 21, 1999 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN
9780747546559
ASIN
074754655X
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

Profile Image for david guterson

david guterson

... Show More

Readers also enjoyed

Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
39(39%)
4 stars
30(30%)
3 stars
30(30%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Marshall-Turner
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
... Show More
Does anyone know of other fiction books that discuss the internment of the Japanese Americans during WW2? I would really enjoy to read more books on that aspect of the war.

This book is quite unique. It involves a murder mystery, as well as a story of the racism suffered by our own citizens during WW2 when our country chose to imprison our own citizens based on their appearance. I found the descriptions of setting rich and textured and tangible. I have never seen strawberry fields, or the misty, foggy mornings of a wet and green land. And yet, I felt as though I had. I enjoyed the childhood friendship between the children that were then separated by war -- or more accurately by race. And I enjoyed the twists of the story about a murder, and trying to figure out what happened.

My only real complaint is that sometimes the descriptions were too lengthy. I think this book would be better if it were about 50 pages shorter.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Glammoon
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
... Show More
A boy falls in love with a Japanese neighbor girl. Along comes WWII, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. The Island, In Washington State, where these two young people live, is torn by racial tensions, the Japanese are sent to internment camps, the young men go to war.
Years pass and the young woman has returned to the Island, married a Japanese man and become a mother. The young man has been to war, lost part of an arm and come back home. He is still in love with the Japanese woman. Ten years have passed when an Island man dies on the sea while fishing and the Japanese woman's husband is accused of murder. When our man, still in love, is given a chance to save his rival from the accusation of murder, what will he do? When the Island people are given a chance to judge a Japanese man on trial will they be able to think past their prejudice?
Slow moving, but strong in atmosphere.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Lucas-Reis
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
... Show More
This is an eloquent, meaningful book. Can't believe I waited so long to read it.

One day, you and your neighbour are pals. You lend one another your tools or indulge in cold beers. Your children share a school bus and play on the same ball team. The next day, your neighbour cannot be trusted. He is an enemy. Such was the result for millions of neighbours following a day that would live in infamy.

David Guterson's excellent novel begins with a looming murder trial, after a Caucasion fisherman is found dead at sea. The reader is then taken back into the dead man's past, the accused man's past, America's pained past. Snow Falling On Cedars, set in the Puget Sound area, is beautifully written. Both the portrayal of America during its era of Japanese interment and the suspense of Kabuo Myamoto's murder trial fascinate and repel.

I'm shocked that this title has received harsh, low reviews. It is a great read.

4.5 stars, due to a slightly less climactic finish than expected.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
LeanaPhantomhive
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
... Show More
What. A. Boring. Book.

Absolutely pointless, with half-dead characters, mystery that leads nowhere, and a big fat bunch of stereotypes about small communities, Japanese, Germans, war veterans, men, women, you name it. One of those books where a noble intent only infuriates the reader. Why was it even written? To show that East is East and West is West and they can have sex but not love or what?

The Japanese elements were beyond lame. OMG there is nothing like "odori dance", "Shizuoka-ken-prefecture" or whatever, and if the author thinks that mono-no aware means "the ultimate beauty", then fine, but he might want to know that it's about as appropriate a compliment to a woman on her wedding night as memento mori. Of course young Japanese people born in the States eat only rice balls and fish and drink only green tea. Ah and they write on rice paper. I'd write more but just don't want to waste any more time on this. 悪しからず。
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Exill
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
... Show More
This book is many things: historical fiction, police procedural, courtroom drama, and love story. It is a densely-written, character-driven novel set on the isolated island of San Piedro in Puget Sound, where the hatreds, bitterness, and wounds of WWII have not completely healed almost ten years after the war's end.
The story opens in December, 1954, as Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American fisherman, is on trial for the premeditated murder of Carl Heine, a fellow island fisherman. The motive appears to be seven acres of land that Kabuo believes the Heines stole from his family while they were interned during the war. Kabuo gazes out the courtroom window and sees snow falling; he has not seen the light of day since his arrest in September, seventy-seven days ago, and realizes he has completely missed autumn.
Also in the courtroom is the reporter Ishmael, who was the childhood lover of Kabuo's wife, Hatsue, and still suffers in his soul from unrequited love. As he also watches the snow fall, he thinks about the contested land: "The world was one world, and the notion that a man might kill another over some small patch of it did not make sense--though Ishmael knew that such things happened. He had been to the war, after all." The rugged island setting is very important to the story--the isolatedness of life for its five-thousand residents, who are at the mercy of the changeable weather and the sea.
As the trial unfolds and witnesses come forward to testify, flashbacks reveal what has led to the current situation--what has shaped each life and caused them to have the feelings and make the choices and judgments they have made: events such as Pearl Harbor and its aftermath, the internment of Japanese-Americans in camps, horrifying WWII fighting experiences, cultural forces and bigotry that thwart love's fulfillment.
The mystery comes to a satisfying conclusion which I thought was well done. I thoroughly enjoyed the richness of these peoples' stories and believe they will stay with me for a long time, which is why I gave the book my top rating. It has been a long time since I've read a novel this well-done and I highly recommend it.
I found these last thoughts from Ishmael most poignant: "The heart of ANY other, because it had a will, would remain forever mysterious. (H)e understood this, too: that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart."
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
theoneandonly99
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
... Show More
Beautifully written and wonderfully atmospheric. The snow storm portrayed throughout the trial had me snuggled in my chair for three days with a blanket covering me. The island and the weather were characters in the story right along with the human characters. I could almost smell the cedar trees in the woods and the strawberries in the sunny fields. And the dust blowing in the wind and in through the cracks and knot holes in the boards in the shacks at the internment camp in the California desert was just as palpable and uncomfortable. It is still hard to believe thàt the US government felt the need to relocate all of those Japanese descendants to those camps.
0 0 Reply
Leave a Review
You must be logged in to rate and post a review. Register an account to get started.