Book review: Hirahara returns to L.A. in new Japantown mystery ‘Evergreen’
In Naomi Hirahara's 'Evergreen,' post World War II L.A. is both home and inhospitable for Japanese-Americans.
‘Evergreen’ by Naomi Hirahara. Soho Crime. 312 pages, $27.95
Multi-award winner Naomi Hirahara delivers another perceptive novel about Japanese-Americans forcibly relocated to internment camps during WWII in “Evergreen,” the second novel in her new series. As did 2021’s Edgar-winning “Clark and Division,” “Evergreen” focuses on characters, allowing Hirahara to explore the bigotry, sense of loss and culture of these American citizens of Japanese descent.
“Evergreen” is set during 1946, two years after the intelligent Aki Iko and her parents were released from the Manzanar internment camp in Illinois, but forced to live with other Japanese families in Chicago’s Clark and Division neighborhood. The family has been gone four years from their home in Los Angeles.
Now the family is allowed to return to L.A., but it is not a happy reunion. The family’s home is gone; the successful market operated by Aki’s father taken over by others; neighborhood sites such as churches, schools and community gardens no longer exist.
Few will rent to a Japanese family, but the Ikos finally find a small, two-bedroom place on Evergreen, a street in the Boyle Heights area, a neighborhood where other immigrants through the decades settled to rebuild their lives.
Aki also is a newlywed, who is thrilled with the return of her husband, Art Nakasone, who has just been discharged from the unit of young Japanese-American soldiers. The couple’s new life is marred when family friends are murdered. Aki fears the deaths will bring unwanted attention to her family and their Japanese neighbors, perhaps jeopardizing their new lives.
Hirahara’s research and fine eye for detail illustrate the adversities faced by Japanese-Americans during and after WWII. Anti-Japanese beliefs run rampant. Aki finds work in a Japanese hospital, but many area hospitals and businesses will not hire nor do business with these American citizens. They are constantly “living on the edge, not fully secure” in the L.A. to which they returned. The entire community is fearful that what little they’ve regained could be taken away.
Hirahara’s affinity for sculpting real characters and placing them in historical context while creating palatable suspense shines in “Evergreen.”