Snow Falling on Cedars

New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. First Edition [stated] Presumed later printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Inscribed on title page. Inscription reads To Catherine--David Guterson. A finely wrought, flawlessly written novel (New York Times Book Review), set on a small island in the Puget Sound, that is at various moments a courtroom drama, an interracial love story, and a war chronicle (San Francisco Chronicle). Guterson has fashioned something haunting and true (Pico Iyer, Time). Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. David Guterson (born May 4, 1956) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist, and essayist. He is best known as the author of the bestselling Japanese American internment novel Snow Falling on Cedars. Derived from a Kirkus review: Old passions, prejudices, and grudges surface in a Washington State island town when a Japanese man stands trial for the murder of a fisherman in the 1950s. Guterson has written a thoughtful, poetic first novel, a cleverly constructed courtroom drama with detailed, compelling characters. Many years earlier, Kabuo Miyamoto's family had made all but the last payment on seven acres of land they were in the process of buying from the Heine family. Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and Kabuo's family was interned. Etta Heine, Carl's mother, called off the deal. Kabuo served in the war, returned, and wanted his land back. After changing hands a few times, the land ended up with Carl Heine. When Carl, a fisherman, is found drowned in his own net, all the circumstantial evidence, with the land dispute as a possible motive, points to Kabuo as the murderer. Meanwhile, Hatsue Miyamoto, Kabuo's wife, is the undying passion of Ishmael Chambers, the publisher and editor of the town newspaper. Ishmael, who returned from the war minus an arm, can't shake his obsession for Hatsue any more than he can ignore the ghost pains in his nonexistent arm. As a thick snowstorm whirls outside the courtroom, the story is unburied. The same incidents are recounted a number of times, with each telling revealing new facts. In the end, justice and morality are proven to be intimately woven with beauty—the kind of awe and wonder that children feel for the world. But Guterson communicates these truths through detail, not philosophical argument: Readers will come away with a surprising store of knowledge regarding gill-netting boats and other specifics of life in the Pacific Northwest. Packed with lovely moments and as compact as haiku—at the same time, a page-turner full of twists.