Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

I came by this book in what just might be the best way possible: a UIP colleague with good taste in books recommended it, and it was free. I admit that when I first heard the title, I was skeptical. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet sounded like it could easily be a romance novel or a Nicholas Sparks book—neither of which I am much interested in reading. However, the book got off to a good start based on its opening setting alone: Lake View Cemetery in Seattle. Now, normally this location would not necessary be appealing, but I had just coincidentally finished The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, which also takes place in Seattle and features Lake View Cemetery, so I found myself feeling like I was part of a meta literary situation. Could Henry Lee of Bitter and Sweet have crossed paths with Racing’s Denny as he walked his dog Enzo through the streets of Seattle and by the cemetery? How old would Denny have been during 1986 when Henry Lee was exploring his past? If we took the fictional cemetery plots in each story, would they be near each other? As these two literary worlds collided in my imagination, I found myself getting drawn into the two worlds of Henry Lee: his past and his present. 

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is the story of a teenage Chinese boy, Henry, and his Japanese classmate Keiko as they experience Japanese internment. The fact that her and her family are tragically carted away by the government puts a damper on their blossoming romance, but the most interesting aspect of the book is Henry’s existence in three different racial climates and his position as an outsider in all of them. Henry and Keiko meet when they both receive scholarships to an otherwise all-White school. Their scholarship has them on lunch duty and cleaning after school, and their classmates make their lives difficult through their mocking and racism—even though Henry is Chinese, and Keiko identifies as American, the students call them both Japs and traitors. Henry is American-born to strict, traditional Chinese parents, and Henry struggles to belong among them due to his father’s racism and resistance again modernity. Henry’s friendship with Keiko and the fact that non-Asians do not distinguish him as Chinese allows him to navigate the Japanese neighborhood and witness firsthand as Japanese families hide or destroy their family heirlooms to avoid being accused of being traitors and are taken from their homes. The only situation in which Henry and Keiko share a sense of belonging is in their experience of the truly American tradition of jazz music.

Throughout the novel, the narrative switches between 1986 Henry and 1940s Henry. The narrative switches are quite an effective strategy that weave his past experiences with the modern reopening of a hotel where Japanese families hid their precious belongings before being interred. (The discovery of the items on the news was the event that inspired his reminiscences in the first place.) As Henry looks for traces of Keiko in the newly discovered stash, he finds himself opening up about his past to his son and resolving long-held issues of anger and guilt toward his father and the disappearance of Keiko. The personal relationships make this book endearing, and the historical aspects of the Japanese internment that are the basis for the story make the book a worthwhile read.

Ford, Jamie. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009.