Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire

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A sweeping tale of fathers and sons, of secrets and shame, and of unsung heroism.

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Publishers Weekly (06/23/2008)
In this uneven debut novel from poet and memoirist Mura ("Turning Japanese"), third-generation Japanese-American Ben Ohara is haunted by the legacy of the WWII internment camps. Both of his parents were detained, and his father, Takeshi, was a No-No Boy whose refusal to join the armed forces planted the seed of his miserable demise by suicide. Now a 40-something itinerant historian, Ben receives a postcard sent 10 years earlier from his troubled younger brother, Tommy, shortly before he disappeared in the Mojave Desert. The long-delayed message revives Ben's interest in his unfinished book, a project that betray[s] my lifelong fascination with the origins of my family's grief and madness. Ben delves into his family's past in an attempt to understand what happened to his father and brother, and while the novel's first half vividly recounts Ben's childhood in Chicago's rough Uptown neighborhood, the second half sees the narrative losing energy as it becomes more contemplative and big family secrets are blandly revealed. Mura writes beautiful sentences, but the story becomes more slack just as it should be intensifying. "(Sept.)" Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal (07/15/2008)
This debut novel by a recognized nonfiction author and poet is presented as the memoir of Japanese American Ben Ohara, who is married and has two sons. After the sudden disappearance of his younger brother Tommy, who abandoned a career as a brilliant scientist and fell into drug addiction and gambling, Ben attempts to come to terms with his past. Ben relates his childhood in the Chicago slums, where a street fight results in his arrest and incarceration in juvenile detention; the suicide of his father, a draft resister, or No-No Boy, during World War II (who never adjusted after his years in an interment camp); and his mother, who assimilated successfully into a post office career and remarried a Caucasian after her husband's death. Intermixed with these recollections are stories from Ben's unfinished dissertation of famous Japanese suicides. Ben discovers that by focusing on his past, he is like "someone other than who I'm supposed to be" and eventually commits himself to his family and the present. Despite the distinct stories about suicides and the Japanese internment camps, the novel is more like a patchwork of fiction and historical facts that does not hold together well. For larger collections only.David A. Beronä, Plymouth State Univ., NH Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

ISBN: 1566892155 | EAN: 9781566892155
Publisher: Coffee House Press  | Publication Date: September, 2008

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