Don't Miss

• Powell's Books
  at Portland Farmers Market
• Indiespensable™:
  Into the Beautiful North
• Frommer's Great Walks: Save 30%
• Summer Vacation Education Sale
• Go Play Outside!

More at Powell's

• Featured Signed Editions
• Rare and Collectible Books
• eBooks | Audio | DVDs | Blu-ray

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!

Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

Grady Harp, June 12, 2007 (view all comments by Grady Harp)
A Deceptively Simple Writing Style: A Series of Profound Messages

Dan Maloney is introduced to the writing world as a genuinely creative thinker, and with his first novel SUNRISE ON KUSATSU HARBOR he has succeeded in communicating some bits of historical data with a keen sense of fictional writing that encourages the reader to re-think the past as well as the concept of war other atrocities in the annihilation of vast numbers of human beings. This is a short but testy little story that packs a wallop - even when we think the novel is finished. The best way to read this book is to read it in one sitting, think for a day, then return to the novel to truly appreciate what the author has achieved in his storytelling technique.

An unnamed man and his wife find a VHS tape in a garage sale, the tape apparently being the film "The Sound of Music", but the tape is interrupted by a film of a man relating a story of his life: the unnamed man recognizes the speaker as a man who worked in the same factory years ago. And the tale begins. Mieko Takachi is a bright young scientist living in Japan in 1944. As the WW II involves Japan more heavily, Mieko is sent to the Army: his assignment is a station in Urakami prison where experiments are being performed on humans to discover a powerful germ warfare weapon that will serve as Japan's road to victory in the war. Mieko has a close friend Tori, a neighbor, with whom he has fallen in love and pledges to marry after the war. About this time the US drops the Atomic bomb first on Hiroshima then Nagasaki. Unknown to Mieko, Tori narrowly escapes death and is hideously burned by the radioactive blast. They each search for each other, but Mieko believes the American bomb has destroyed everyone and everything he loves and his bitterness transforms to vengeance as he books passage to America where he plans to destroy a number of Americans equal to those killed in the two bombings. Tori, not knowing Mieko's whereabouts, recovers though disfigured from the bomb blasts (a 'hibakusha') and devotes her life to caring for the many casualties from the war.

In time Tori discovers the Mieko is living in America, agrees hesitatingly to become an 'Hiroshima Maiden', and is transported to the USA for surgeries promised to alter her grotesque appearance. She eventually finds Mieko although she is unrecognizable to him, endures the same prejudices Mieko faces as a Japanese immigrant after the war, and Mieko and Tori (who calls herself Tsuki for secrecy reasons) work in a factory with their new friends Carmen and Gary making envelopes. Mieko keeps to himself, still planning a means of vengeance: he will tamper with the glue on the envelopes making the glue contain a virus that will kill Americans who use the envelopes. Gradually Carmen encourages Tori/Tsuki to reveal her identity to Mieko and the two regain their status of love. Tori convinces Mieko to forsake his vengeance scheme and they decide to return to the place of their beginning - Katsuka Harbor - and leave their American friends behind. Thinking that Mieko was such a fine worker because of the manner in which he finished the envelopes, Gary takes the potion Mieko planned to use in the glue, applies it to the envelopes - and another global devastation of atrocious disease is born. The manner in which Mieko and Tori and subsequently Carmen and Gary discover the importance of love and family over worthless, senseless acts of vengeance or competition draws the story to a surprising close.

Not all of the novel works well: the last pages concerning the envelope glue disaster are a bit shaky in their hypothetical equality with the A bomb results, but the idea is strong and perhaps could have happened.... The pleasure of a tale of this magnitude told in a brief 137 pages is the impact of the historical implications between Japan and America, a stance presented from the Japanese vantage related in so succinct and uncluttered a fashion. Using this technique of writing Maloney manages to capture our attention, make us think differently, and alters our perception of how war can bruise the psyches of civilians as well as soldiers. In doing so he provides us with a story about the human spirit that can endure much and remain intact. This is a fine little novel by a most welcome newcomer! Grady Harp

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(5 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)

report this comment

Product Details

ISBN:

9781579218584

Author:

Maloney, Dan

Publisher:

Winepress Publishing

Subject:

Literary

Subject:

Historical - General

Publication Date:

June 2006

Binding:

Paperback

Language:

English

Pages:

141

Dimensions:

9.00x6.04x.42 in. .57 lbs.