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“Doc” Hata recently retired from his occupation as the owner of a medical supply store.
He has never married and his adopted teenage daughter Sunny has left home. Reflecting
back upon his life as a Japanese immigrant of Korean ethnicity living in the United States,
he feels he has achieved a high status and is well respected in his community of Bedley Run. However, demons of his past, including a forbidden love,
failure to marry, and an unsatisfactory relationship with his adopted daughter, often
surface in thoughts of his life both in Japan and the United States.
The author provides a thought-provoking examination of how one Oriental man conducts his life in order to be accepted and deemed “proper” by others of his community. Parts of the story seem a bit hard to follow because of movement back and forth in time, occasional significant scenes too sketchily described, and lack of important history (especially Sunny’s childhood). Nevertheless, the novel succeeds in its beautiful use of language and ability to evoke a wide range of emotions as it poignantly examines one man’s feelings. It is an attention-getting, fascinating story, especially about the comfort girls of the Imperial Red Army during World War II. The novel makes a major contribution to American literature about the Asian immigrant experience. |