Hi, Bookies:

First off, your July book is…Dan Chaon’s intriguing Await Your Reply. Staff editor Ashley Tate, who will lead July’s discussion, will say hi later this week.

Next up: Jamie Ford. The author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet took some time this weekend to answer the questions you had about his book. (By the way, if you’ve thought of more questions, you haven’t missed your opportunity: Jamie is happy to keep answering.) Enjoy!

From Lindsay: I’ve seen critics call your story a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. What inspired you to write this romantic tragedy?

Jamie Ford: You know, I’ve thought about this one a lot and honestly, I’m just a sucker for love stories, or what literary purists might call “noble romantic tragedies.” Granted, I gave HOTEL a bit of a redemptive ending, but at its core it is undeniably a love story. It probably goes back to my childhood. As a 3rd grader I was captivated by the movie James at 15, your typical 70s television movie-of-the-week. It was the story of this boy pining away for this impossible girl, who he finally wins over. But the movie didn’t end there––it ended with James and his family packing up and moving to Boston. It was a tragic, heartbreaking movie that really rattled me, especially since the most complex social dynamic I had ever seen up to that point was probably Disney’s The Nutty Professor. I’ve been a fan of love stories ever since.

What possessed you to not have Henry pursue Keiko more when he was young? I can’t help but think that he might have “settled” with Ethel without a hard fight.

I really do believe that the hard choices in life aren’t between what’s right and what’s wrong, but between what’s right and what’s best. And sometimes those decisions involve personal sacrifice. For Henry, I envisioned him stuck between what his heart wanted, and his commitment to Ethel, and to his family. He was giving up his potential happiness, for the sake of others. It’s a theme, like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, that we can all relate to—even aspire to, but it’s hard to actually make those sacrifices in real life.

At first, I couldn’t believe that Henry and Keiko’s relationship was so intense for how young they were. How did you decide on their ages and did you ever think that centering the story on older teens might have created
more drama and romance?

I guess I just wanted to err on the side of innocence.

I did have one agent offer to represent the book only if I made the characters older so they can, and I quote, “Fully explore their relationship.” It’s not that I couldn’t write a sweatier version of HOTEL, I just didn’t want to. I have teenage children and things get more complicated as they get older and I didn’t want to go there.
Plus, I’m a fan of movies of the 40s and 50s—when love was all-consuming rather than all-consumating. I love the decorum of that time period in fiction and wanted to emote that a bit. In that regard HOTEL is a bit of a throwback.

I found this book enthralling! My question for the author is: Did he have any relatives that experienced these camps and if so, did he use their stories to tell this one?

Posted by: Chris H| Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 11:56 PM

I didn’t have any family members with direct internment experience, but I did have family with more of the Chinese-American experience. Like Henry, my dad wore one of those “I Am Chinese” buttons, and talked about kids throwing rocks at him thinking he was Japanese—that kind of thing. Lots of stories about growing up during that time period, before and after the Internment and how the neighborhood changed.

My question for the author is this: When you began writing the book, did you always know that Henry and Keiko would be reunited in the end or was that decided as the book progressed?

Posted by: Kelly| Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 12:47 PM

I did. I always know the ending. That ending is so important to me––it becomes my magnetic north as I write. I don’t write from an outline, but I always have the beginning and ending fully developed before I begin the journey. That final page keeps me on track. I do discover a lot of twists and turns along the way, but I’m always working toward that moment of conclusion and resolution, it’s what keeps me going.

While I loved the record and its significance to Henry, Keiko and Sherman—to the entire story—I’d like to know the author’s thoughts on
why he didn’t let the sketchbook’s role become just a bit bigger. Henry was
thrilled to find it, then pushed it aside and went on…it just seemed to me
that the sketchbook was a defining element in forming the character of
Keiko. I felt like it was a ‘dropped line’…then again, that happens a lot
in books, not all lines can be filled out. Likely Jamie Ford will think ‘hey
I’m the writer, it’s my story, that’s why!’ ;)

Posted by: DanaB| Friday, June 25, 2010 at 09:51 AM

Wow, that’s a great question. Oddly enough, I have a degree in art and design, so I think that the sketchbook was probably too close to home. The sketchbook became the visual version of a “lost diary”—which is sometimes used as a plot device in fiction.

When I was doing my research and found that at one point South Jackson Street had 38 jazz clubs, that part of the neighborhood became so vibrant and so forgotten that the record seemed like a natural way to go. It captivated my attention as a researcher and was rooted in the real history of the area. But the music that was so alive in the 40s is gone. That loss seemed to mirror Henry’s loss, as the neighborhood atrophied, so did his emotions.

Thanks for having me by the way—this is fun. :) Always happy to answer questions…

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