Kate’s 2¢: “Clark and Division” by Naomi Hirahara

“Clark and Division” by Naomi Hirahara

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I found so many Japanese terms distracting from the story. It was enough to digest the Japanese names.  Other than that, I found the story compelling, yet disturbing.

   Along with reading “Clark and Division”, I was reading “Facing the mountain: a true story of Japanese American heroes in World War II” by Daniel James Brown and read by Louis Ozawa. The historical facts of both books match, so, the story of the family’s travails in Chicago are quite plausible. 

   What bothers me is how inhuman man (or should I say: people?) is to man and how history is still repeating itself.  Will we ever wake up intime to save ourselves from ourselves?

Home

Naomi Hirahara was born in Pasadena, California. Her father, Isamu (known as “Sam”), was also born in California, but was taken to Hiroshima, Japan, as an infant. He was only miles away from the epicenter of the atomic-bombing in 1945, yet survived. Naomi’s mother, Mayumi, or “May,” was born in Hiroshima and lost her father in the blast. Shortly after the end of World War II, Sam returned to California and eventually established himself in the gardening and landscaping trade in the Los Angeles area. After Sam married May in Hiroshima in 1960, the couple made their new home in Altadena and then South Pasadena, where Naomi and her younger brother Jimmy grew up and attended secondary school.

The author  visited  Hiroshima at the age of three.

Naomi received her bachelor’s degree in international relations from Stanford University and studied at the Inter-University Center for Advanced Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo. She also spent three months as a volunteer work camper in Ghana, West Africa.

She was a reporter and editor of The Rafu Shimpo during the culmination of the redress and reparations movement for Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes during World War II. During her tenure as editor, the newspaper published a highly-acclaimed inter-ethnic relations series after the L.A. riots.

Naomi left the newspaper in 1996 to serve as a Milton Center Fellow in creative writing at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas.

After returning to Southern California in 1997, she began to edit, publish, and write books. She edited Green Makers: Japanese American Gardeners in Southern California (2000), published by the Southern California Gardeners’ Federation and partially funded by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. She then authored two biographies for the Japanese American National Museum, An American Son: The Story of George Aratani, Founder of Mikasa and Kenwood (2000) and A Taste for Strawberries: The Independent Journey of Nisei Farmer Manabi Hirasaki (2003). She also compiled a reference book, Distinguished Asian American Business Leaders (2003), for Greenwood Press and with Dr. Gwenn M. Jensen co-authored the book, Silent Scars of Healing Hands: Oral Histories of Japanese American Doctors in World War II Detention Camps (2004) for the Japanese American Medical Association. Under her own small press, Midori Books, she has created a book for the Southern California Flower Growers, Inc., A Scent of Flowers: The History of the Southern California Flower Market (2004). Other Midori Books projects include Fighting Spirit: Judo in Southern California, 1930-1941 (co-authored by Ansho Mas Uchima and Larry Akira Kobayashi, 2006).

Summer of the Big Bachi (Bantam/Delta, 2004) was Naomi’s first mystery. The book, a finalist for Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize, was also nominated for a Macavity mystery award. The completion of the novel was made possible by support from the California Community Foundation’s Brody Arts Award; Hedgebrook in Whidbey Island, Washington; Pacific Asian Women Writers-West; UCLA Extension Writers’ Program; and again, the Milton Center, which has since moved to Seattle, Washington.

Receiving a starred review from Publishers Weekly, Summer of the Big Bachi was included in the trade magazine’s list of best books of 2004, as well as the best mystery list of the Chicago Tribune. Gasa-Gasa Girl, the second Mas Arai mystery, received a starred review from Booklist and was on the Southern California Booksellers’ Association bestseller list for two weeks in 2005. Snakeskin Shamisen, the third in the series, was released in May 2006. In April 2007 it won an Edgar Allan Poe award in the category of Best Paperback Original. The third Mas Arai book was followed by Blood Hina, Strawberry Yellow, Sayonara Slam and Hiroshima Boy, all currently published by Prospect Park Books. The seventh and final Mas Arai mystery, Hiroshima Boy, was nominated for an Edgar Award in the category of Best Paperback Original, an Anthony and a Macavity.

Naomi also has two books in her Officer Ellie Rush bicycle cop series, Murder on Bamboo Lane, winner of the T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award, and Grave on Grand Avenue, both published by Penguin Random House. Her series set in Hawai’i featuring Leilani Santiago is connected to the world of Ellie Rush. The series begins with Iced in Paradise, released by Prospect Park Books. Her only book for younger readers, 1001 Cranes (Delacorte), received an honorable mention in Youth Literature from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Clark and Division DB104746

Hirahara, Naomi. Reading time: 8 hours, 58 minutes.

Read by Allison Hiroto.

Suspense Fiction

Mystery and Detective Stories

Chicago, 1944. Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have been released from the Manzanar camp they were incarcerated in, and relocated to Chicago to be reunited with Aki’s older sister, Rose. But Rose has died in a train accident, and Aki must uncover Rose’s secrets. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

Downloaded: October 7, 2021

Download Clark and Division

“Clark and Division” by Naomi Hirahara

Facing the mountain: a true story of Japanese American heroes in World War II DB103646

Brown, Daniel James Reading time: 17 hours, 42 minutes.

Louis Ozawa

Bestsellers

World History and Affairs

The author of The Boys in the Boat (DB 77138) highlights the contributions and sacrifices of Japanese Americans, particularly four families whose sons volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He discusses the dangers these soldiers faced as well as the difficulties and discrimination their families suffered back in America. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2021.

Download Facing the mountain: a true story of Japanese American heroes in World War II DB103646

Kate’s 2¢: “November man. Books 4-6” by Bill Granger

“November man. Books 4-6” by Bill Granger

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

The British Cross

   Oh my, the tangled  deceptive webs we do weave!  I’m still not sure who was telling the truth. There sure were a lot of dead bodies, double and triple crosses mixed in with love and more deceptions.

“The Zurich Numbers”

   This begins with a brief re-cap of “The British Cross”, then begins a new intrigue, where you know the November Man will have to become involved  to clear up the human trafficking or is he messing up an NSA black op?

   I wonder what the writer’s process is to keep all the dead or alive, friend or foe characters straight.

“ Hemingway’s Notebook”

   Much of this story surrounds the mystery of a notebook the real Hemmingway may or may not have left and been found by the possible current owner.

From Wikipedia:

Bill Granger (June 1, 1941 – April 22, 2012) was an American novelist from Chicago specializing in political thrillers. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Joe Gash and Bill Griffith. He worked at the Chicago Tribune and other Illinois newspapers.

Granger lived most of his life in Chicago, on the city’s South Side. He attended St. Ambrose Catholic School until 1955. Next, Granger attended DePaul University, where he was a student newspaper editor of The DePaulia. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1963.[8] During his student years he was a copy boy with The Washington Post”, where he met his wife Lori.

Military service and writing career[edit]

From 1963 to 1965, Granger served with the United States Army before his writing career that span from the 1960s to 2000 with several Chicago newspapers:[8]

• 1963-1966 Reporter with United Press International Chicago bureau

• 1966-1969 Reporter with Chicago Tribune

• 1969 Began teaching journalism classes at Columbia College, Chicago

• 1969-1978 Reporter and columnist with Chicago Sun Times

• 1971 6-month leave from Sun Times to Europe and later covering Belfast civil war for Newsday, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times news service

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

November man. Books 4-6 DB103992

Granger, Bill. Reading time: 26 hours, 0 minutes.

Read by Dwayne Glapion.

Spy Stories

Books four through six of the series, published between 1983 and 1986. In The British Cross, a defecting Russian agent dangles a Gulag prisoner in front of the November Man. Also includes The Zurich Numbers and Hemingway’s Notebook. Sequel to November Man, Books 1-3 (DB 103520). Strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex. 1986.

Downloaded: October 7, 2021

Download November man. Books 4-6