Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Thomaston, Maine - On Tuesday, April 16th, at 2:30 PM, the Inter Generational Book Club will discuss Jamie Ford's stunning 2009 debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

Ford's novel tells the story of best friends Henry and Keiko, one Chinese and one Japanese, whose friendship is torn apart by familial, cultural, and racial antipathies – and by the internment of the Japanese in U.S. camps – following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Told from the vantage point of an adult Henry in the Seattle of the 1980s, the novel fully recreates the Seattle of the 1940s, when, at best, ethnicities did not mix, and, at worst, became actively hostile. Library Journal says, “In his first novel, award-winning short-story writer Ford expertly nails the sweet innocence of first love, the cruelty of racism, the blindness of patriotism, the astonishing unknowns between parents and their children, and the sadness and satisfaction at the end of a life well-lived. The result is a vivid picture of a confusing and critical time in American history.”