Book Review: Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara (Mas Arai #1)

Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Well drawn character and well plotted story
Cons: Japanese words and dialect made it hard to get into the book
The Bottom Line:
Well plotted debut
With richly drawn character
Language barrier




Sins of the Past

For fifty years, Japanese American Mas Arai has built a life for himself and his family in Pasadena. Since he works as a gardener, it hasn't been a comfortable life, but they have survived. Now he is a widower and his daughter has moved to New York. Mas is enjoying the quiet his life has become.

All that is shattered one June afternoon. Mas enters one of his favorite haunts, Tanaka's Lawnmower Shop, to find a stranger asking around about Joji Haneda. The man claims to be a private investigator. Mas tells him nothing, but the encounter shakes him to his core.

Mas hasn't had any contact with Joji in years. Now the owner of a nursery in Ventura, the two men used to be friends. But that was in Hiroshima during World War II. And the two share a secret from the dropping of the atomic bomb that Mas would prefer to stay hidden.

Still, the encounter makes Mas start working on looking Joji up himself. Unfortunately, he isn't the only one. A young reporter with wild hair from Japan is also asking around. And someone doesn't want Mas poking around any more. Why the sudden interest in Joji?

I have heard great things about the novel. Much of the praise is well deserved. The book paints an interesting picture of the Japanese American sub-culture as well as life in Japan during World War II. History buffs will certainly enjoy that aspect of the book.

While not the traditional murder and three suspects I normally read, the book is well plotted. The story starts strongly and moves along rapidly to its climax. Only the last few pages of wrap up drag a little. Still this is a minor complaint.

Mas is a well drawn character. It was easy to picture this Hiroshima survivor as a real person. While he had some obvious faults, he was still likeable. I kept reading because I cared about what happened to him. The story is told third person from his point of view, and the narration takes on a haunting noir quality right from the start.

So why the three stars? Because it was almost impossible to get into the book. The conversations were peppered with Japanese words. I could usually figure them out from the context, but sometimes I couldn't. Additionally, in an effort to make the dialog have an authentic dialect, the words were often purposefully misspelled. Not only did they not help me picture how the characters talked, but I had a very hard time following what they were saying sometimes. Finally, the characters names were foreign. While this seems obvious, several of the characters names were so similar I had a hard time keeping them straight. I realize this last one is more my problem then the authors, still all three of these kept me from getting truly engrossed in the tale. Instead of inviting me into a culture I know nothing about, they served to make me feel like an outsider. Honestly, I almost put the book down at one point.

I'm glad I persisted. Summer of the Big Bachi has an interesting tale with believable characters worth reading about. The flaws are strong enough to make me only give it a hesitant recommendation, however.