Pun Salad

Another book plucked from the NYT list of The Best Mystery Novels of 2021. It's also the third fiction book I've read in 2022 that's Japan-related in some way; that's a coincidence, I think. Or maybe I'm …? No, I don't really think so.

The first-person narrator is Aki Ito, a young Nisei (US-born to Japanese immigrants) girl. The Ito family is living a decent life in Tropico, California (now part of Glendale). But that life is disrupted by World War II; they are uprooted and sent to the Manzanar internment camp. But there's a program to move camp inhabitants from Manzanar to "safer" locales, away from the West Coast. So the Itos sign up, and are destined for Chicago; older sister Rose goes ahead of the rest of the family to make arrangements.

But very bad things happen to Rose while she awaits the rest of her family. And on their arrival, they get the horrific news: Rose is dead, having been hit by a Chicago Transit Authority train at the (dum dum dum) Clark and Division Street subway station. Suicide or accident, say the authorities. But heartbroken Aki is dubious: could she have been pushed? She vows to find out more about what happened.

But other parts of her life go on, too. She finds work, she attempts to fit in with the Japanese community in Chicago, and she's also at the age where she thinks young men might not be yucky after all. So that's a part of the book, too. (She thinks she might want to be a nurse. Given her diligence and deductive powers, I'd think she'd make a pretty good detective.)

The author, Naomi Hirahara, did a vast amount of research (detailed in the back matter) to get the historical, geographical, political, and sociological details right. It's very impressive and moving.