Hatsui’s mother gathered her five daughters together, Hisao’s letters in her hand. She told her daughters, once again, the story of her odyssey from Japan on board the Korea Maru. She told them about the Seattle rooms she had cleaned, the sheets on which white men had vomited blood, the toilets full of their excrement, the stench of their alcohol and sweat. She told them about the waterfront cookhouse where she’d worked chopping onions and frying potatoes for hakujin stevedores who looked right through her as if she weren’t even there. She knew, already, about hardship, she said—her life had long been difficult. She knew what it was to be alive without being alive; she knew what it was to be invisible.

It was pure happenstance that I read Snow Falling on Cedars just one month after the death of George Floyd and the beginning of renewed racial protests, but it could not have been timelier. David Guterson’s first novel takes place on the fictional island of San Piedro, one of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, where the residents support themselves through salmon fishing and berry farming. The story takes place in 1954, just eight years after the end of World War II. The novel opens in the middle of a trial, although it will take a while before we learn the crime of which the defendant has been accused and the nature of the evidence against him. Guterson reveals this information in the form of flashbacks.

A salmon fisherman named Carl Heine is found floating dead and entangled in his boat’s gill net in the waters off San Piedro. It initially appears to be an accident, but suspicions soon arise. Another fisherman, a Japanese-American named Kabuo Miyamoto, is accused of the crime and put on trial for Carl’s murder. The Miyomotos are one of the many families of Japanese descent on the island. Evidence confirms that Miyomoto boarded Heine’s boat on the night he died. The trial begins in the winter of 1954, just as a violent and beautiful snowstorm ferociously whips the island. Among the trial’s observers is Ishmael Chambers, a war veteran who runs the local newspaper, which he inherited from his father. Ishmael was once in love with Hatsue Miyamoto, Kabuo's wife, and he has never come to terms with losing her. A former Marine who lost an arm while fighting the Japanese, Chambers’s obsession has left him bitter. His mother tells him, “You went numb, Ishmael, and you’ve stayed numb all these years.”

As the trial begins, old passions and prejudices surface. Upon examining the body, the local coroner suggests that the sheriff look for "a Jap with a bloody gun butt". Kabuo’s stoic bearing revives anti-Japanese prejudices that were only lightly buried in the nine years since the war’s end, even though Kabuo and other Japanese were born and raised on the island and fought for the United States during the war. Flashbacks reveal that Hatsue and others in San Piedro’s Japanese community were exiled to a government internment camp. The Japanese also have their own grounds for resentment stemming from years of bigotry. We learn that Kabuo was effectively robbed of land that his father had worked for years. Kabuo’s father had made all but the last payment on seven acres of land they were in the process of buying from the Heine family. Heine’s mother, Etta, sold the land to another farmer—a legalized injustice. Just as Ishmael Chambers is obsessed with Hatsue, Kabuo is obsessed with getting back the land that his family lost.

What sets Snow Falling on Cedars apart from other courtroom dramas is the beautiful writing. Guterson describes the beauty of the islands and the inner life of every major character. His writing captures the moods of the sea, forest, and fields, as well as the details of the lives of the fishermen and farmers. The snowstorm intensifies the islander’s isolation. He has carefully researched every essential detail of fishing, farming, and of Japanese American culture. He carefully describes the nature of the islanders’ relationships, their suspicions, and resentments. And he beautifully depicts the painful legacy of the war and the community's struggle to deal with that pain.

Guterson compels us to ask larger questions about the nature of truth, guilt, justice, morality and responsibility. He deftly explores the dangerous undercurrents of prejudice and fear that disturb the seemingly placid surface of life on San Piedro Island. How can people in a small, tightly-knit community be neighbors for generations, even love one another, yet be torn apart by racism? As the father of an adopted son from Asia, it’s a question that is rarely far from my mind these days.

Have you ever watched an episode of a TV show that was made up almost entirely of flashbacks? At the end of the episode, you find that the flashbacks were not only distracting from the story and annoying, but were evidence that the writers just didn't have enough material to write one full, good episode. That's how I feel about Snow Falling on Cedars.

Rather than using the flashbacks as a clever device to fill in some back story, you find the story really is the back story. Wha??? Exactly. It was as if the author couldn't decide if the story would be the trial and its outcome or the backstory that led up to the trial, so he opted for both, but he did it in such a clunky and distracting fashion that it took away from the story...or stories...I'm not sure.

And everything is spelled out for the reader. Everything. For example, in the chapter in which the autopsy is performed on the victim (Carl Heine), we read this:
"But the sheriff was a man of inherited anxieties. It was not really in him to go over there and see what was under Carl Heine's face.
Horace Whaley (the coroner) knew this: that the sheriff did not want to see what was inside of Carl Heine's head."

Why did the author have to tell me that twice? In fact, why did he have to tell me at all? Could he not have described some action to communicate the sheriff's feelings to me? Everything is just spelled out. If you're not reading one of the courtroom scenes (which are few and far between) in which dialog is taking place, the chapters are just loooooonnnnng narratives of everything that happened. Absolutely everything, whether or not it seems relevant to the story. And with every detail painstakingly spelled out for the reader.

And, the characters are so stereotypical and flat. Two of the main characters supposedly fell in love at the age of fourteen and can't let it go as adults. (Do you know how I know they were fourteen? BECAUSE THE AUTHOR TOLD ME THREE TIMES IN THE SPAN OF TWO PAGES THAT THEY WERE FOURTEEN. Truly, I wanted to say out loud, "Okay, they're fourteen. I get it. Sheesh.") These characters hardly have any depth. They're like robots on paper and I'm supposed to feel sympathy for them. I can't. I honestly don't care what happens to any of these people.

While there were times the descriptions of the setting were decent, the author seemed to go on far too long with far more information than was needed. At times, it seemed he must have sat with his thesaurus next to him, using as many fancy words as he could find in one passage. It was as if he was hoping to impress or felt the need to establish himself as a writer, but took it too far. Way, too far.

This book is definitely not for me. At times it even had a "soap opera" feel to it, something I detest. It was well received and celebrated by many when it was first published. I'm glad they all enjoyed it, but I've learned my lesson...trust my instincts and stop reading a lot sooner when I my gut says, "This book is not for you."

Once in a while a novel stops me completely in my treks, its visual impact is poetry. The main story is set years after the Second World War; the bombing of Pearl Harbor has left its mark. The opening has my complete attention, it’s a court scene, it doesn’t take me long to realise this is Ishmael Chamber’s story and when Hatsue Miyamoto, of Japanese descendent, tells him to go away I know something big is coming in how it’s weighed down by subtext.

When I turned over the last page, I hadn’t imagined the weaving tapestry of a variety of hates in different measures and triggered by different things. For Ishmael it’s a pining love that has been festering away and sucking life out of him. All this goes on whilst Hatsue’s husband, Kabuo, is being trialled for murder. However, as the story unfolds more layers emerge showing it’s a town on trial for their prejudice. It’s the kind of injustices that would be easy to be aggravated by but David Guterson handles it sensitively by using irony and the frailty of human nature, illustrating how easy it is to fall into the trappings of hate.

As a read, this could have been told with a heavy hand, but it’s the little details of poetic injustices that deeply moved me. Ishmael not ready to let go of Hatsue drew my sympathies, she understood long before he did they were not right for each other. I couldn’t help feeling if Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened would they’ve had a chance? David Guterson answered this by his drawing of characters; I’m not sure if Ishmael would have got the code of dignity and honour instilled in Hatsue and Kabuo; one of which was to show no emotions. Also, unlike Ishmael, Hatsue never forgot they were from different cultures, and she did not let their romance draw her to impractical daydreams.

Away from the romance is a gritty realism of how the American Japanese community were treated after the war. It was heart-breaking to read, especially the living conditions of the camp that undermine the dignity that they live by.

I also liked how the novel is peppered with examples of misunderstandings stemming from cultural differences. The worst part of it is the blindness to righteousness inflaming the anger the prejudice shadows. When Kabuo is on trial his lack of emotions is read as lack of remorse. This is further compounded when witnesses give their accounts, their words that become evidence using a subjective empirical system – their feelings. Feelings, which are raw from losing or having friends and family fight in a war against Japan. The war may have been over for years, but in this small-town prejudice is awakened when the war is revived on a much smaller scale, begging the question when something is over is it truly ever left in the past?

Published in 1994, and set in 1954, Snow Falling on Cedars is an atmospheric novel with a strong sense of place. It is set on San Piedro, a fictional island off the coast of the state of Washington. As the story opens, Kabuo Miyamoto is on trial for the murder of Carl Heine, a fellow fisherman. Miyamoto is alleged to have resorted to murder in order to settle a land dispute that dates back to WWII when the Miyamotos were forced to relocate to an internment camp. Ishmael Chambers, owner of the local newspaper, is covering the trial. He is the childhood sweetheart of Miyamoto’s wife, Hatsue, and has remained obsessed with her. The story gradually reveals the backstories of the characters, in non-linear segments, including many violent and traumatic episodes experienced during WWII, which have had a lasting psychological impact.

It is an interesting blend of mystery, courtroom drama, history, and first love. Rather than focus on a blow-by-blow question and answer of witnesses during the trial, the author artfully employs narrative sequences and flashbacks to provide the essence of the testimony without overburdening the reader with detailed courtroom procedures. Themes include racism, justice, obsession, and the emotional trauma of war. It explores the difficulties several characters experience in moving on from the past to be able to more fully live in the present. The presence of a winter storm sheds light on the role of unpredictability of life:

“Those who had lived on the island a long time knew that the storm's outcome was beyond their control. This storm might well be like others past that had caused them to suffer, had killed even—or perhaps it might dwindle beneath tonight's stars and give their children snowbound happiness. Who knew? Who could predict? If disaster, so be it, they said to themselves. There was nothing to be done except what could be done. The rest—like the salt water around them, which swallowed the snow without any effort, remaining what it was implacably—was out of their hands, beyond.”

This novel is beautifully written in a traditional style with a strong storyline, vivid setting, and deeply drawn characters. It is engrossing, creative, and engenders an emotional response. It meets all my criteria for an exceptional reading experience. I loved it and have added it to my list of favorites.

This book was so hauntingly good, it made me want to read more novels by men.
I've toured the Pacific Northwest West many times and I've seen evidence of a hidden history around Japanese internment camps and injustice and I wanted to learn more. I am so sad for how Japanese Canadian/ American people were treated and continue to be treated. On Salt Spring Island I saw many stores and places named after a "Mowat" so I looked him up. I discovered that the many pioneer Japanese families who were forcibly removed from their homes during WW2 came back to the island years later with nothing...a man named Mowat had sold all their land and profited greatly while they in the camps. This book has made the details of those days come alive and shatter my heart.

*I can't help but note however, that the online jokes about how poorly men write women are all true in this book, even to the point of comedy. I couldn't tell you much about the women in this story except what their lips, neck, and breasts were doing at all times.

The island of San Piedro ,1954

A fisherman's body is found apparently murdered.
Kabuo Miyamoto, an American Japanese is charged , and a trial is conducted during a fierce blizzard.

As the trial progresses, we are exposed to the open wounds related to the Japanese American community before,during and following the second world war:

The exile and encampment of the Japanese Americans during the war.

The open wounds that still exist in the minds of the war veterans.

Prejudice, racism and simple fear of people who are different.

Life and hardships in a small community where everyone knows everyone.

The book combines various naratives:
Historical fiction /Drama.
Love story.
Legal thriller.

I enjoyed the book, I enjoyed the slow pace and the deep description of the nature, fishing and human relationships. The characters are well developed and enrichen the plot with life and substance.

The story itself, while being interesting, is a bit lame and not very reliable, but still entertaining.

Oh gosh did this book generate some feelings in me. Why is it so hard for people to do the right thing for the right reason and believe that other people can too?

A friend recently sent me a reel on Instagram, and it was asking the question about why white people are afraid of Black people (a very generalized question on racism, of course, and not meant to point out anyone in particular). I thought about it, and I've concluded racism in that context might exist because there has never been a full accounting of truth. Germans have recognized their role as Nazis, and Canada has finally recognized the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a federal statue to coincide with Orange Shirt Day to recognize the damage done to Indigenous populations in their residential schools. It's never too late to admit a wrong and right a relationship. The US has never done anything like this for slavery or the Indigenous massacres. I think that this fear of Black and Indigenous people and the intuitive need to keep them subjugated is based on what retribution might be exacted if they ever came forward for true healing, forgiveness, reparations, etc. So much harm has been done through the centuries that I can understand this fear.

This book takes place in the 1950s, less than a decade after WWII ended, less than a decade after most of the Japanese internment camps closed. There was still a lot of suspicion. Pearl Harbor was still a fresh memory for many people. Never mind that a lot of the Japanese were US citizens at the time and had been living in the US for several generations. It was only during Reagan's time that any kind of apology was issued (might be the only thing Reagan ever did that I approved of). All surviving Japanese were given $20k in reparations. In today's value, that would be roughly $60k. It wasn't enough to make up for all the racism/xenophobia Japanese (and let's face - anyone looking Japanese) were subjected to, but it was something. But in the 50s and for many years afterward, while WWII veterans who had fought the Japanese were still alive to remember their wartime traumas, we were still considered a barbaric culture that were not to be trusted. And this is the setting we find ourselves in this book.

The internments were a terrible blight on modern US history. People were rounded up and forced to leave behind all their assets, without being able to say goodbye to anyone, often being separated from family members, without being given much information about what will happen to them, forced into camps that were not built for survival, manned by cruel soldiers, barely feeding families, and without much healthcare. Some people weren't even Japanese - they were rounded up because they looked Japanese. (Sounds like a version of what the Nazis were doing with the Jewish people, what the Patriot Act did to Brown men and Guantanamo Bay after 9/11, and what we are doing today with ICE raids, no?) As an act of self-protection, many even volunteered to fight for the US in the war. Of course they weren't thanked or welcomed in the war fields or back home when they came back, be it alive, maimed, or dead. When the remaining people were released from camps, they found they had no homes to go back to, no businesses run again or jobs to take back, no lives to resume. Most of their assets had been stolen, looted, sold, damaged, and many of their bank accounts were never unfrozen. On top of their ruinations, on top of being sapped of any resources and having to start from zero, they were hated upon from all directions. And this is the backdrop of this book. I don't know how many people who've read this book realized the dire circumstances Japanese were in at the time.

So while I won't forgive them racism in this book, I can understand it. I can see why Kabuo and his wife felt hopeless. I can see why the judge felt conflicted. I can understand the jury wanting to interpret reasonable doubt in a very narrow way. I can understand Ishmael's personal struggle to weigh his own PTSD and depression against his unrequited love. I can empathize with the widow and the defense attorney trying to challenge the collective conscience of the jurors.

I feel like the book ended a bit hastily, but up until that point, it was definitely a story that felt realistic. I would've liked the author to have provided the background more explicitly, but I don't know what kind of research was done, whether any was done. I think it would have been a more compelling story if Guterson could've conveyed how what it was like for the Japanese and the communities they were living in back then. But given the resurgence of rash "law and order" in the name of "national security" between 9/11 raids and current ICE raids, I think this is an important story to keep telling and retelling.

The last half of this book is a real page turner. Loved it! I’ll add this to my favorites.

I've been so busy I took a long time with this book, however, it is no reflection on how much I like this book, respect the necessity of this book and completely comprehend it's position as a classic book. I now understand why this book is an award winner and found on many syllabus as required reading.

I wasn't really sure what to expect upon beginning this book. I just knew I was looking for something good and worth reading. From the very first page the author's skill made it self known. I could tell that this was not going to be a let down and it wasn't in any way. From the writing style, to the content of the story, to the delivery and emotion in the detail.. there was nothing that I was not satisfied with in this read.

This is a book about a trial within small town of a Japanese American man in the years following WWII but it's so much more than that. The author delves back in to glimpse the history of the town and it's inhabitants before the war, at the onset of the war and the internment camps, during the war the transformation and after. It is also the story of several characters love, forbidden love, choices, friendship, loyalty, patriotism and racism.

This as most know is another classic that producers/directors saw fit to attempt a movie version. I'd known about the movie and may have even watched it very long ago but must not have been impressed because I remembered nothing but the fact that I "may" have seen it on cable possibly. As I neared the half way point in my reading I discovered it again was showing on cable, I recorded it and was looking forward with much anticipation to watching this version and comparing it to the movie. I don't know why because most movie versions fall severely short of their written counterpart that it's almost a waste of time to bother, however, I was interested. Well, after watching the movie I must admit.. my original apprehensions were correct. It fell short. Liberties were taken adding dialog that did not exist or changed the magnificence of the written version. Essential dialogs, characters, scenes were omitted and therefore took away the depth that this wonderful work carries within it. It changed the whole message I believe the author was trying to deliver. I found myself shaking my head and eventually yelling at the screen, "that did not happen!! What are you doing, you're ruining it!" It's so sad that some such wonderful, pivotal works of fiction just can't get their just due in film form. My advice is, if you've seen this movie, forget it, go pick up the book! If you read this book, just forget a movie exists until hopefully Hollywood picks up the topic again (like they did with Gatsby) and hopefully does a better job at it.

I give this book all 5 stars because it deserves it. I would love to go back at some later time and re-read this book giving it more time to quote lots of essential lines, dissect characters and contrast and compare the scenes, atmosphere and history and how it applies to us now in the real world. Again, this is an important piece of literature. I recommend to everyone because this is a required reading. It's not a difficult read at all and you will be consumed. It is a serious modern, classic read though, so if you're into comedy, horror, fantasy or chick lit, this isn't for you.

another white guy writing about another tragic woman of japanese descent. i found it self-indulgent.

My first 5-star read of the year! The novel is set in 1954 on San Piedro, an island of 5,000 off the coast of Washington state. A decade on from the war, the community’s chickens come home to roost when a Japanese American man, Kabuo Miyamoto, is charged with murdering a fellow fisherman, Carl Heine. The men had been engaged in a dispute over some land – seven acres of strawberry fields that were seized from the Miyamoto family when, like the rest of the country’s Japanese population, they were rounded up in internment camps. Meanwhile, Ishmael Chambers, who runs the local newspaper and lost an arm in the war, stumbles on a piece of evidence that might turn the case around. Still in love with Hatsue, now Kabuo’s wife but once his teenage obsession, he is torn between winning her back and wanting to do what’s right.

Guterson alternates between trial scenes and flashbacks to war service or stolen afternoons Ishmael and Hatsue spent kissing in the shelter of massive cedar trees. The mystery element held me completely gripped – readers are just as in the dark as the jurors until very close to the end – but this is mostly a powerful picture of the lasting effects of racism. All the characters are well drawn, even minor ones like elderly defense attorney Nels Gudmundsson. Even though I only read 10 or 15 pages at a sitting over the course of a month, every time I picked up the book I was instantly immersed in the atmosphere, whether it was a warm courtroom with a snowstorm swirling outside or a troop ship entering the Pacific Theater. This has the epic feel of a doorstopper, though it’s only 400 pages. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

DNF - pg. 364.

Okay, I can't do this anymore. It's a wonder I didn't give up earlier. There's no sense in me trying to finish the last 96 pages or so, because I'll just get angry wading through it.

OH. MY. GOD. Why does this book take so goddamn long to get to the point? There's gotta be a tangent and another backstory every time someone new is introduced. There is so much needless information here that if you cut the book in half, and then some, you'd still end up with a bloated flesh of a story. And there's not a lot of story in the present day to begin with. The book is comprised of 90% backstory, and of that 90%, only about 10% of it is necessary. The rest is pointless details about the characters, the shade of leaves, talk about cedars, what some random person in town was doing that day, actions that don't matter, etc., etc., etc.

I dreaded turning the page only to find MORE chunky paragraphs full of verbosity that lends nothing to the story. The writing is nothing special, either -- no poetry or style to it. It's the epitome of telling everything and not showing anything. I don't need to know what the characters are thinking all the time if you just show it to me instead. I don't care about what happens to the story or its characters anymore -- it's failed to elicit much sympathy from me anyways.

And what kinda clunky metaphor is Guerson trying to make with the thunderstorm and all the SNOW and the cedars? OH, the cedars!

Contender for the worst read of the year so far.

Here's an example of what I've been reading for the past 364 pages:

"Ishmael stopped in at the Amity Harbor Restaurant and asked Elena Bridges to put two cheese sandwiches in a paper sack for him; he didn't have time to stay and eat. The restaurant, though half-dark, was full and loud with conversation -- people sat in booths ad at the counter wrapped in coats and scarves, with bags of groceries underfoot, and turned their glances toward the snowfall beyond the windows. They were glad to have found a place to come in from the storm. Later, when they were done eating, it would be difficult for them to go outside again. Ishmael, waiting, listened to the conversation of two fishermen hunkered down at the counter. They were lapping up tomato soup that had been warmed on the gas stove and speculating on when the power might come on again. One wondered if high tide, with the wind behind it at fifty-five knots, might not swamp the town docks. The other said that a wind out of the northwest would bring down a lot of trees that were used to southerlies, including a white fir he feared mightily that grew on a bluff behind his cabin. He had gone out that morning and tied his boat off to a mooring buoy with tripled lines and through his binoculars could see it from his living room swinging about when the wind gusted down the bay. The first man cursed and said he wished he'd done the same with his boat, which would have to take its chances moored on slack lines with a dozen fenders out, six on either side; it was too tricky in these winds to move it."

That's one paragraph. I don't mind long paragraphs, but I do when it's boring and full of stuff I don't need to know about. Instead of describing their convo in that much detail, wouldn't it just be easier and move lively to actually type out the dialogue? Imagine this for the rest of the book -- just dull summary after dull summary of stuff that happened so that the book just renders all the characters as gray and washed-out.

Here's another:

"It had been, he saw now, a war marriage, hurried into because there was no choice and because both of them felt the rightness of it. They had not known each other more than a few months, though he had always admired her from a distance, and it seemed to him, when he thought about it, that their marriage had been meant to happen. His parents approved, and hers approved, and he was happy to leave for the war in the knowledge that she was waiting for him and would be there when he returned. And then he had returned, a murderer, and her fear that he would no longer be himself was realized."

So much of the book is in past perfect tense. Stop telling me, and just SHOW. There's hardly any dialogue anywhere, except in the courtroom scenes, and it's awful.

And by the way, I didn't have the above paragraphs marked. I just flipped to random pages. Because these looooong, lifeless paragraphs are everywhere.

Perhaps the least necessary bit of all:

"Nel's wife had died from cancer of the colon. They had not gotten along particularly well, but nevertheless he missed her. Occasionally he sat in his apartment and wept in order to empty himself of self-pity and remorse. Occasionally he attempted unsuccessfully to masturbate in the hope of rediscovering that lost part of himself he deeply, achingly missed. He was convinced at rare moments that he could succeed and that his youth was still buried inside of himself. The rest of the time he accepted this as untrue and went about the business of consoling himself in various unsatisfying ways. He liked to eat. He enjoyed chess. He did not mind his work and knew himself to be quite good at it. He was a reader and recognized his habit of reading as obsessive and neurotic...."

That last paragraph continues on for a couple more sentences, but I'm tired. I don't want to think about this book anymore. This is a peripheral character by the way, so did I really need to know this much about him? Why do I have to know the life story of EVERY character that's in this town?