Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Most of us do not give much thought to the Japanese internment that happened in the U.S. during World War II, but this novel brings it alive by showing how painful and disruptive it was. The novel has a dual time frame: in 1942 a Chinese-American boy, aged 12, befriends a Japanese-American girl in Seattle; in 1986 the boy, now an old man, finally moves to find out what happened to the girl he had once wanted to marry. I enjoy reading about how the personal and political intersect in the lives of common people. Usually such stories take place in China or among European Jews during World War II, so it is humbling to see the same kinds of things happening in your own country. Many of the Japanese-Americans interned during the war had never been to Japan and did not even speak Japanese. Jamie Ford tells an intricate tale that makes for a really good read.