Up In Smoke Reviews: Author Interview

What inspires you to write and why? I love stories that deal with struggle for freedom, searching for identity and purpose, and have some sort of message that forces you to contemplate. John Steinbeck best made the claim: “The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation.

I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.” And within the same context, he also wrote, “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”

What inspired you to write your first book? When I was fourteen I came across a book, called Kim/ Kimi, about a young girl searching for her real father, who was Japanese-American, only to discover he had been imprisoned in an American internment camp during WWII. I had never heard of these camps up to that point in my life. In Europe, yes; even China, but not here. Not in America. I had to know and therefore went to the library to begin my journey. Three years later I put together a 30 minute mini-documentary for a class project and then wrote a short story.

Nine years later I expanded that story into a novel. Why? I don’t have any Japanese ancestry in my family tree. I live in the Midwest and grew-up in a medium size town where cultural diversity is a bit underdeveloped. My reason is simple: I don’t want to continue to live in a conical world. Consciousness does not develop and mature by existing in a frozen pond. Therefore after I had graduated college in 2000, my husband and I drove to Bainbridge Island, just on the tail skirt of Seattle, Washington, to pursue my journey.

Who or what influenced your writing over the years? John Steinbeck. He mixes literary prose and realism with such grit and fortitude that I’m charmed by his depressing and enriching style. The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are still inside my head, and in fact I have made soft suggestions to both books in Eyes Behind Belligerence.

I’ve also been inspired by Empire of the Sun, Lord of the Flies, and To Kill a Mockingbird when dealing with war, prejudices, and violent interactions between people under stressful circumstances. But more recently, I’ve enjoyed how integrating the art of storytelling with historical research have succeeded beyond a marginalized audience such as Middlesex, Water for Elephants, and The Help.

What is your greatest strength as a writer? Crafting the characters. I maintain a strong, realistic quality for each character which makes the characters believable and identifiable. The consistent compliment I receive is the development of dialogue that builds the credibility of each character by having their own voice.

Can you share a little of your current work with us? Eyes Behind Belligerence is about two Japanese-American families who endure racism and the harsh elements of desert life while imprisoned in American concentration camps during WWII. Told in five parts, this novel unravels the challenges between two unlikely Nisei friends, Jim and Russell, into adulthood. As restrictions are imposed, (even in the safe, rural community of Bainbridge Island,) as harassments escalate, (including the F.B.I. invading their homes and deporting their fathers to Montana for espionage trials,) the fated day arrives: evacuation of all Japanese civilians. Rounded up like cattle, tagged, they are hauled to the fringes of Death Valley: Manzanar.

Together they must survive racism, gang violence, and the harsh elements of the environment. Together they must prove their loyalty, especially after a tragic riot on the eve of Pearl Harbor’s anniversary. While Russell enlists in a segregated army, becoming part of one the most decorated units in U.S. history, Jim is sent to a different camp for the “No-No” boys: those who are marked disloyal. Removed from their families, they are forced to reevaluate their identities and discover, most importantly, what it means to forgive.

How did you come up with the title? I think the word, belligerence, upholds a physically powerful statement about how malicious the world can be; and by using the noun, eyes, represents how the characters view the world around them. There’s a passage in which Jim writes in his journal: “Exiled, shamed and damned like bastards, we stare through these barbed wire fences, our eyes. Our eyes betrayed by this world; our eyes behind belligerence.”