Our Region Reads: Let’s Read, Let’s Talk

Author of ‘Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet Coming’ to North Idaho in March

Editor's Note: This article was published on the front page of the North Idaho Life section of the Coeur d'Alene Press on Friday, Feb. 25.



Author Jamie Ford in Bud’s Jazz Records in Seattle. The store closed in 2008.



The libraries of North Idaho have joined forces for Our Region Reads – a reading program designed to encourage area residents to read and talk about books by focusing on a single title and author each year.

The selection for 2011 is “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,” by Jamie Ford, a novel about a boy of Chinese heritage growing up in Seattle at the beginning of WWII and his relationship with a Japanese-American girl who would be caught up in the forced relocation of Japanese families.

The background music for “Hotel” is the sound of jazz being played in Seattle’s clubs and homes in the 1940s.

Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations. An award-winning short-story writer, Ford is an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and a survivor of Orson Card’s Literary Boot Camp.  Having grown up near Seattle’s Chinatown, he now lives in Montana.

Ford will come to North Idaho in March as part of the related programs that will also look at the region’s role in World War Two, jazz, the Japanese Internment, the influence of Asian cultures in the Inland Northwest, and any number of related subjects.  

The author recently responded to questions about his work and background:

Press: Your character Henry Lee was the only Chinese student in his school and was subject to bullying by fellow students and sometimes hostility from his teachers. Did you experience anything like this growing up? And if so, how did you respond.

Jamie: I always feel like this is where I’m supposed to reveal some great Horatio Alger moment of my childhood, but honestly, I really didn’t encounter much bullying or racism, at least not to the degree depicted in the book—probably because my last name is Ford, which can be confusing. Plus my dad was fairly well known, and he taught martial arts to police officers. That knowledge always helps in the bully-prevention department. Though there was one summer when my family traveled to Arkansas (where my mother was from). I remember my parents warning me that people might stare or say things—there was definitely a concern about my father, a Chinese man, and his Caucasian wife traveling to the “deep south.”

Press: Did members of your family ever talk about their experiences during WWII? What was their attitude toward the relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans?

Jamie: My dad wore one of the “I Am Chinese” buttons depicted in the book. His cousins did as well. He talked about walking to school and kids throwing rocks at him and calling him a “Jap” — that kind of thing. He would end up throwing the rocks back and getting into fistfights. He also talked about going to school and seeing a lot of empty desks after his Japanese classmates had been taken away. But I don’t think there was a lot of enmity toward the Japanese in my immediate family. My dad’s cousin married a Japanese woman, and my dad married a woman who was by my definition, “Betty Crocker White.” We were ahead of the curve, I guess.

Press: When you were living in Seattle was the Japanese-American removal and the elimination of Japantown discussed as part of the local history?

Jamie: There’s definitely an institutional memory of the Internment in Seattle—especially since there are so many families living there who were directly affected by it –  either Japanese families, or their neighbors, classmates, co-workers, etc. But it can still be a delicate subject. There was a wall of silence that began to crumble in the ’80s, with reparations, and the next generation finally asking questions. 

Press: Jazz plays a big role in “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.” Is this also one of your passions?

Jamie: I get asked that a lot. Honestly, (true confession time), I’m more of a blues guy — I love Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Eric Bibb, etc. But I do have a fascination with the jazz scene at the time. Back when Count Bassie and Duke Ellington would hit Seattle on a West Coast swing. Back then jazz was vibrant and alive — there were jazz orchestras, which later became quartets, and shrank to trios, and tinkling piano bars. Now when you think of jazz in Seattle you tend to think of Kenny G, which breaks my heart.

Press: What was involved in your research about life in Japantown and later in the relocation camps? Did you visit any of the places where the camps were located?

Jamie: I had visited Minidoka and knew how arid that part of Idaho is — and it was even more so back then, when it was dry farmland, sans irrigation. And I had been to the Puyallup Fairgrounds countless times, but had never known it had once been a temporary detention center. But beyond the places themselves, I spent a lot of time doing research at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle, and also joined Densho, a foundation dedicated to preserving the oral history of the Internment. Both were incredible resources.

Press: What influenced you to become a writer?

Jamie: I actually labored in the salt mines of advertising for years. But in advertising you’re really selling your creative soul by the pound. So I began writing fiction on the side, just so I’d have this creative sandbox unrelated to my day-job — for my own sanity. I found that I wanted to spend more and more time in that sandbox, until ultimately, I moved into the sandbox.

Press: What is the most challenging thing for you about being an author?

Jamie: Well, as I’m writing this I’m sitting on an airplane bound for Florida. Keeping up with all the travel has been a challenge — as a newbie author I’m profoundly grateful for all the attention HOTEL has received, but I do have those moments where I wake up and have to remember what city I’m in. 

Press: Who were the authors you enjoyed reading as you were growing up and who are you reading now?

Jamie: People often ask if I grew up reading Raymond Carver, since I lean toward minimalism in my writing, and my answer is always, “No, I read that other great minimalist, Isaac Asimov.” I read tons of Science Fiction as a kid, and comics too — so Stan Lee was my hero. But I’m also a theater geek, so I read Shakespeare. (Instead of a wedding reception we took 70 people to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”).

These days my favorite authors are probably Pat Conroy and Sherman Alexie, though the one author that has haunted my imagination from adolescence to adulthood is the great Harlan Ellison.

Press: You live in Montana now. What is your life like there? Is there anything in particular about the area that interests you as a writer.

Jamie: Living in Great Falls, Montana is like living in 1977, which if you think about it, was a fantastic year: “Star Wars” premiered, the Atari was born, and the Clash’s first album was released. It’s like perpetually living in the best year of my childhood. Plus, I travel so much for book events anyway that I get my big city fix on the regular; it’s nice to come home and be off the grid. There are a lot of writers in Montana. It’s where we go to hide.

Press: What are you working on now?

Jamie: I just finished editing my second book, which was like giving birth to a nine-pound baby, sideways. But it’s finally delivered. It’s another historical, multi-cultural love story, set in Seattle and Japan. It’s tentatively titled “Songs from the Book of Souls.”

No release date yet, but I think we’re looking at early 2012, so stay tuned…

More information about Jamie Ford can be found at his website: http://www.jamieford.com/my-debut-novel-from-ballantine/