Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Unavailable
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel
Unavailable
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel
Unavailable
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel
Audiobook10 hours

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel

Written by Jamie Ford

Narrated by Feodor Chin

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

"Sentimental, heartfelt….the exploration of Henry's changing relationship with his family and with Keiko will keep most readers turning pages...A timely debut that not only reminds readers of a shameful episode in American history, but cautions us to examine the present and take heed we don't repeat those injustices."-- Kirkus Reviews

"A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war--not the sweeping damage of the battlefield, but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. Especially relevant in today's world, this is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more importantly, it will make you feel."
-- Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

"Jamie Ford's first novel explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love. An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut."
-- Lisa See, bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan


In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry's world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship-and innocent love-that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel's dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice-words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editor's Note

Illuminating & touching...

First love gets torn asunder but never dies during World War II, as Japanese internment tears the young lovers apart. An illuminating and touching story about the devastations war wreaks across multiple generations.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 27, 2009
ISBN9780739382844
Unavailable
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel
Author

Jamie Ford

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Hoiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name Ford, thus confusing countless generations. His debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list and went on to win the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. His work has been translated into thirty-five languages. Having grown up in Seattle, he now lives in Montana with his wife and a one-eyed pug.

Related to Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Related audiobooks

Literary Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Rating: 4.200836820083682 out of 5 stars
4/5

239 ratings207 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a classic, the book and their lives, at least the good times. The way I would want my life to be.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It seems like Jamie did a lot of historical research for his book! I really liked it. It was a well put together story with a dash of romance, drama, and some history mixed together as a fiction title!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet jumps back and forth between the 1980s and the 1940s, telling the story of a Chinese boy who grew up in Seattle during WWII, and now as an aging widower is revisiting his childhood memories. In particular, he focuses on a forbidden romance between himself and a Japanese girl, who was sent to an internment camp.I feel bad criticizing this book, because it is a good book... but in some ways, its very goodness is what bothers me about it. It's good in a very academic way, in that it obeys the checklist of all the things that can make book good (character development - check; story has a strong relationship to its setting - check; historical accuracy - check; believable dialog - check; immigrant child struggling to cope with relationship between traditional family culture and American culture - check). But because of this academic goodness, I felt like everything about it fell a little flat. It was missing some intangible, indescribable thing that I guess I'll call "soul." I have some specific criticisms too - mostly that the relationship between Henry and Keiko did not feel at all like a first romance between 13-year-olds, but like a much more mature relationship between older teenagers. Yes, I know kids grew up faster then, but their devotion to each other did not feel convincing to me. I also found Henry decisions towards the end to be totally inexplicable.I'm glad I read the book, but if I didn't live in Seattle I'm not sure I would be glad I read it. The parts of the book that relate to Seattle's history are very interesting and very well done.I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator was quite good.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Set in Seattle, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet flashes between present day 1986 and the home front during WWII. Henry is a Chinese American who is raised by traditional Chinese parents. So intent on Americanizing his son, his father sends 13 year old Henry to the white school and insists that he wear a button identifying him as Chinese just to make sure he isn't mistaken for the Japanese enemy. At school Henry befriends Keiko, a Japanese American who is the only other non Caucasian. The two develop a deep friendship which Henry hides from his father. When Keiko's family and the rest of the Japanese in Seattle are sent to internment camps, Henry loses his best friend. The two stay in touch for a while but slowly lose communication. Henry eventually meets Ethel, a Chinese woman, whom he marries and starts a family with. Henry confronts his past 40 years later when a treasure of Japanese belongings are discovered in the basement of the Panama Hotel in Seattle. Knowing that Keiko's family had stored their goods at the hotel before they were forced out of town during the war, Henry is intrigued and enlists his son to help him find a part of his past. I enjoyed reading this book but found it a bit sentimental. I would recommend it highly for a young adult audience.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Story of love between Chinese boy and Japanese girl, both born in America, 1940's start of WW II
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A very moving story about love, family, racism, and impact of war on society. Set in Seattle -- alternating between several years around World War ii and the 1980s -- this story is a love story with many layers set around the factual details of U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage being sent to internment camps. Good characters and good storytelling, but could have been more compelling if some of the story were told from the perspective of the Japanese characters, rather than solely from the main character.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's not a perfect book, but it is a nice American story about a Chinese American man who remembers his life when he was in gr 6 and befriended a Japanese American girl who was then later was put in an internment camp during WWII. The book flipflops between the man's current life (1986) and his youth (1942).

    Yes, the kids as 13 yr olds are much more adult and articulate than one would expect. Perhaps kids in 1942 were more adult, but these two have wisdom and perspective beyond their years. Yes, the story ends as predicted, but it is American. I think my bigger complaint is that the book has the luxury of Henry's adult life being so focussed on that time period in 1942 because in a fictional life, the life that happens between 13 and 50 is glossed over and forgotten. Could a 13 yr old really meet the girl of his dreams and love her enough to always secretly wonder about her, enough so that when he is 50 he still feels strongly about her and wonders about the loose ends? That is more unlikely to me. A 50 yr old dismisses the emotions of his 13 yr old self as childish and moves on. Unless the point of the story is to say that soulmates really exist. But that's going to far.

    Take the book as a nice, pleasant story that gives some insight into Seatle in 1942 regarding Chinese and Japanese Americans and immigrants and internment camps. But remember it is sugarcoated.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story itself I found beautiful, heartwarming, maddening and shaming. I went through so many emotions while reading this book. I would have given it 5 stars except for the many, many historical inaccuracies.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a brilliant, heartbreaking book. The writing and tone is not quite as melancholy as Snow Falling on Cedars, but it's still really well done. I'm enjoying it so far, and I love the pov the author chose. There's one moment, where the protagonist is watching the Japanese being hearded out of Seattle, and he wonders if the portrait brides are being separated from their white, American husbands. I had a sudden visceral desire to read that story, and I felt the echoing loss of not only the Japanese culture, but all that America lost when this stupid, horrific, unjustifiable act was committed. The depth of history, the bonds of trust -- the basic American integrity, all stripped and damaged, perhaps irreparably.

    I was a teenager when I first learned about the Japanese internment. Although I grew up in Washington, and knew many Japanese families at my church, I did not know about this sad part of our history. I learned about it at the public library, doing research on the Jewish concentration camps. I remember the disbelief, the horror and disappointment in my country when I realized what we as a people had done, how lines had been drawn and divided and families and histories sundered because of blind, mindless fear. How horribly this echoed the atrocities half a world away. I remember feeling ashamed for weeks afterward when I encountered the older Japanese people at my church, and I knew they had lived through that -- yet they seemed at peace and content, more patriotic than I.

    My mom lived in Germany for a while, and she always used to pore over stories of Jewish concentration camp survivors; of Germans who risked their lives and welfare to help some small number survive or escape. It was a constant source of grief and confusion to her that the people she had lived with and loved -- good, honest people -- had turned a blind eye to the atrocities in their country. She never could figure it out. I feel a measure of that when I consider this dark section in our history.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I needed this happy ending.

    TWSS!

    I really did enjoy the book, predictability and all. I think the ramifications of bigotry and racism are clear and in this day and age I liked the reminder.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked the book, but DID NOT LIKE some of the weird details that I don't think lined up with the author's timeline. Was the phrase 24/7 widely used in 1986? How about the use of computers to track someone down within a matter of hours or participation in an online grief support group?

    Ugh.

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not my favorite kind of book, but an easier read than I expected and a fairly enjoyable one. I liked that Ford deliberately crafted his story so that there was the possibility for a happy ending. I get a little tired of feeling like literary fiction always ends on a sad note. The choice to go with alternating time periods was a good one as it added tension to the stories and allowed themes to develop more complexly. I went in expecting this to be driven by the historical story, but it was really driven by the characters. It also seems ready made to be turned into an Oscar-bait type movie. Some of the scenes (like Henry and Keiko communicating through the fence; or Henry's wild wagon ride escape) just seem so cinematic already.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the story of a Chinese man from Seattle and his childhood best friend, a Japanese girl who, like him, goes to an all-white school on scholarship. By dividing the tale between Henry's boyhood life starting in the early 1940s and his life in the present (1986), we are able to get glimpses of the experiences that made Henry the man he is today--how Henry's relationship with his son is different than his relationship with his own father, how Henry formed his own cultural beliefs, and all the different types of love he experienced. Plus, I am a big history buff and, although extremely disheartening, I liked learning more about how life might've been for Japanese Americans during World War II.

    I have to admit that I teared up a few times during this book. Also, it was great to read about places with which I am familiar. As someone from Seattle, it was so interesting to read about neighborhoods during a different era.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Unusual and poignant book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I normally shy away from WWII books, but this was charming. It deserves the attention it is getting from book-clubs
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After reading a few not so positive reviews I started the book with caution. I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the story very much and learned new things that I was not aware of during the WWII times. This is always an important factor for me in whether I give a book a rating over 3. The chapters moved quickly for me which is also a plus. I would love to see Jamie write a book written from Keiko's side and what happened to her in her life. I hope others have made that suggestion to him! We should have enough subject matter from this book for a nice book club discussion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    “He'd done all he could. But choosing to lovingly care for her was like steering a plane into a mountain as gently as possible. The crash is imminent; it's how you spend your time on the way down that counts.”Why did this sit on my shelf for so long? Maybe I thought I had read enough books on the war but this was so good. It had my husband & I looking up the 1942 Internment practices that touched so many Japanese and Italians. Being that his parents were first generation American born Italians it made us think a bit. The description of the jazz scene was also so vivid.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    To begin with, I started thinking there wasn't much to the writing style but after a few chapters I was drawn into this tale and totally captured. The injustice that takes place is heartbreaking. At the end, I thought to myself, it was actually a predictable ending, if I had taken the time to think about it, but due to the excellent job the writer did I was so totally engrossed and holding on the every single word, that it sneaked up on me. Perfect.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I enjoyed reading this book, but felt Henry Lee a little weak as a character. In the End, Henry redeems himself and does the unexpected. I liked the description of the hotel and the childhood of Henry and Keiko. I can feel their pain and rejection through Ford's story. I can almost feel the anguish of the Japanese as they are herded into trains to be sent to interment centers. I cannot believe that growing up this event was never discussed, even though the world was told the fate of the Jews. I could not understand how Henry and his father stopped communications.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting viewpoint on a period of history I knew little about. Easy read--sentimental. A solid enjoyable book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This one has been sitting on my shelf for several years. When our book club chose it for the October meeting, I decided to get an early start. I've read several books about the Japanese internment camps. All have been written from the point of view of the Japanese. But I knew little if anything about the impact of the Japanese-Chinese enmity resulting from centuries of cultural rivalry and fueled by the Japanese invasion of Chinese territory before the attack on Pearl Harbor.Henry, a 1st generation Chinese boy, born in the US, is sent by his parents to an all-white school where he is constantly confused with "the Japs". As a scholarship student, he is given a job in the kitchen, where he meets Keiko, a Japanese girl who is 2nd generation American.Their bittersweet friendship, which Henry must keep from his parents, blossoms in spite of the fact that Keiko's family is rounded up and taken to a camp, first in Washington State, and later in Idaho. Throughout the story, Henry is mentored by a black jazz musician who befriends both of these youngsters, helping them visit and stay in touch through the long war years.The story opens in the 1980's, as Henry is searching through property left by Japanese in the Panama Hotel looking for a jazz recording that had been his and Keiko's song. Told in a back and forth story between the 1940's and the 1980's we see how Henry confronts racial prejudice, how the war feelings of the era influenced everything that happened to both these young people.Ford writes the story objectively and sympathetically from both sides. The reader is presented with a tale that is at once hopeful and full of tears. Without making judgement, Ford leaves the reader to decide whether there was a right or wrong, and who if anyone was at fault. I'm thinking this will generate a really good discussion in a few weeks.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved this story of a young Chinese boy who falls in love with a young Japanese girl. Their love is beautiful, but forbidden. The author describes so well the city of Seattle during WWII. Excellent read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very good read. It took place in Seattle where I have been many times, it even mentioned Walla Walla where I grew up. It's hard to believe that after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1942 they actually had internment camps for American citizens! When I was in Tennessee a few years ago my brother actually took us to where one had been and the fence was still there.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Six months after the death of his wife, Henry Lee finds himself in front of the Panama Hotel where a treasure trove of Japanese families’ possessions, stored in the basement of the hotel for safekeeping all these many years, has just been found. Henry suspects that some of those possessions belong to the family of his first love, Keiko, a love that he has never forgotten. Traveling back in time to 1942, we meet twelve-year-old Henry, a second generation Chinese immigrant “scholarshipping” at a preppy white school. As he reluctantly makes his way every weekday morning from Chinatown in Seattle to school, he is teased by the Chinese kids for being a “white devil;” when he gets to school he is teased by the white kids for being Chinese and is a target for the school’s bullies. Life at school as the only Chinese kid is pretty lonely for Henry. Part of his “scholarshipping” includes working at the school cafeteria alongside a surly lunch lady, Mrs. Beatty. One day, Keiko, a young Japanese girl, shows up to work alongside Henry. She too is “scholarshipping.” A friendship, which slowly evolves into an innocent romance, blossoms between the two. A friendship, let alone a romance, with a Japanese girl is more than a little problematic for Henry. His father, a Chinese nationalist, disapproves of any and all things Japanese. He sees the Japanese as enemies of his beloved China and the United States. Henry hides his relationship with Keiko from him and his mother until the government starts rounding the families in Japantown up and Keiko asks Henry for help hiding some of the families precious possessions. After Keiko and her family are interned Henry finds ways to see her, but when she and her family are sent to a camp out of state, the two lose contact with each other. Henry grows up, marries and has a son of his own, but the discovery of the treasures at the Panama Hotel and his newly widowed status makes Henry confront the questions of should he and could he find Keiko again.Although the story is mostly about the childhood romance between Henry and Keiko, I read it because of its historical context. I learned a little about the Japanese plight post Pearl Harbor: the incredible prejudice they encountered (before and after they were sent away); the vultures sweeping down on Japantown and buying real estate for pennies on the dollar and making a healthy profit after the “evacuation.” One of the most surprising things to me was the fact that the U.S. government told the interned Japanese that they were being evacuated and relocated into these camps for their “own safety.” When Henry visits the camp he wonders why, if the Japanese families are being interned for their own good, the machine guns are being pointed inside, not outside the camp. When Henry notices that the Japanese prisoners greatly outnumber the guards, he asks Keiko's father why they don't try and take over the camp. He replies, "Loyalty. We're still loyal to the United States of America. Why? Because we too are Americans. We don't agree, but we will show our loyalty by our obedience. Do you understand, Henry?"I have never read a book about this particular scene in U.S. history, even so, this story felt incredibly familiar. I think I was expecting more here (what, I’m not sure) than what I actually got. There’s a friendship here between Henry and a black jazz musician, Sheldon, which adds a great amount to the story. It’s also the author’s way of introducing us to the Seattle jazz scene which was a pleasant and unexpected bonus. Other than that, though, some of the characters’ actions, which I assume were supposed to surprise me, felt incredibly predictable. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was an enjoyable read and it kept my attention to the very end. Once I finished it, though, I felt like I had just watched a movie on the Hallmark channel. Nothing wrong with that; I think I was just expecting something more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the kind of novel I like most: a mix of world history and an authentic life story of an individual. "Hotel at the corner of bitter and sweet" or "Il gusto proibito dello zenzero" in the Italian version is about Henry Lee, an American citizen of Seattle with Chinese roots, who was twelve years old when he met Keiko. Together with this brave Japanese girl he stands up to the blatant racism of his white classfellows, they explore their city and the universe of jazz music. But in 1942 their lives are shattered when after Pearl Harbour the US government decides to send all West Coast Americans of Japanese origin to so-called 'relocation centers'. The separation from Keiko hurts, and affects Henry's life. More than 40 years later the old Hotel Panama is opening its doors again. In the cellars a bamboo parasol is found and for Henry this works as a trigger to the past. "Hotel at the corner of bitter and sweet" is a moving story, revealing a dark page in America's history.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book. Makes you think more on a personal level of another aspect of World War II.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An excellent book. This one happens to deal with father/son relationships. Any parent/child relationship is fraught, and this one has 2 generations of them with which to deal. It was done very well.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Henry Lee, a recent widower, discovers that an old hotel near the edge of Seattle's Chinatown and former Japanese section of the city is reopening and the new owners have found a large amount of belongings in the basement. These belongings were the property of many Japanese families who were exiled from their homes during WWII to internment camps. Henry was a Chinese boy of 12 in 1942 and found friendship and love with a Japanese girl, a schoolmate. The hotel news triggers his memories of those times and we find out the story of those years when he met his first love in a time of war and prejudice. It's mixed with his present (1986), where his son is about to graduate university and is newly engaged. It's about tradition reconciled with being a modern American in the western world, relationships between fathers and sons, friendships and first love. All in all a good read. Well written, good characters. Really gives a good feel for what it might have been like at that time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If you've ever put together a puzzle, you know how frustrating it can be, finding pieces that, because of the machines that cut them, were rough and didn't quite go together, or those that, for some odd reason, has a piece or two missing when you finish. Most literary books are like this... with pieces missing or roughly fitting together. And sometimes that's okay, because life often works that way. In reality, nothing ever really works the way it should, and pieces fitting together are often called miracles, not normal at all. But I think if you were to step outside of people's lives, you would see that the pieces actually do fit together. That irony and counterpoint often do resolve themselves. And it is undeniably poignant when it does happen. Perhaps this is what I like most about Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, that, like a puzzle, the pieces fit together so well, smooth and complete.To move away from the metaphor, Ford did an outstanding job in characterization in this, and well he should, having learned from a master, Orson Scott Card, in his writing boot camp. For a good story can be told whether it is science fiction or Romance, and such a story will resonate with men or women, even one such as me, who doesn't usually read something considered a love story. To the story itself, Hotel is the life story of Henry Lee, a Chinese boy growing up in Seattle during World War II. From his love of jazz, to his father's anti-Japanese feelings, to his first love, each part of his growing up intertwines with each other. Throw in the questionable tactics of placing all Japanese citizens in relocation camps, and the story takes a similar feel to what the Muslims must have felt like post 9/11. I can heartily recommend this book to anyone, from high school students (11th grade, in conjunction with WWII) to anyone looking for a really good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lovely writing and sensibility. I was drawn into the world of the Japanese internment camps and found the setting especially well done. Henry is a wonderful character - warm and believable. I wanted only a bit more bite and tension...the story lost some of its grip on me by about three-quarters of the way through. But still, highly recommended.