Synopses & Reviews
Gretel Ehrlich explores the twin solitudes of political exile and geographic isolation in this powerful novel set in Wyoming during the Second World War.
Heart Mountain is the story of Japanese Americans forced into a relocation camp: Kai Nakamura, a graduate student uncomfortably reunited with his parents and their old-fashioned, traditional ways; Mariko, a gifted artist, and her husband, a political dissident; and Mariko's aging grandfather, a Noh mask carver from Kyoto. And it is the story, too, of the ranchers and sheepmen, waitresses and cowboys of the nearby town; of McKay, who runs his family farm with the help of Bobby Korematsu, the family cooks, and Pinkey, an alcoholic cowboy; and of McKay's neighbor Madeleine, whose husband is misisng in the Pacific.
By accident, by design, amidst uncertainty and hostility, the two groups come together to learn of politics, loyalty, and of love as transient and fleeting as history itself.
Review
"The fusion between America and Japan, between love and hate, between shame and domination, between war and peace...permeates Ehrlich's dazzling first novel." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Ehrlich weaves many heartbreakingly beautiful passages in elegantly spare and vigorous style, all showing how time and history are greater than us all." Chicago Sun Times
Review
"Ehrlich's writing moves lyrically and lovingly over the natural world...[and] she is equally adept at reaching for insights almost beyond words...." Newsday
Review
"A sweeping, yet finely shaded portrait of a real west unfolding in historical time." The Christian Science Monitor
Review
"Rich accounts of calving, cock-fighting and descriptions of the Western locale show the author at her best, but fail to advance the narrative. Ehrlich's assiduous research is evident, yet worthy as is her desire to expose the injuries dealt to innocent citizens in a time of national panic, her characters are often only wafer-thin. The novel succeeds less as a full-blooded work of fiction than as a compassionate documentary." Publishers Weekly
Review
"When Japanese-Americans were relocated during World War II, about 10,000 were sent to Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Wyoming. Ehrlich's first novel portrays the camp as it was seen by the ranchers and small-town residents who lived outside its gates....Ehrlich here puts her considerable gifts to good use, expressing her love for the land and people of Wyoming in beautifully crafted prose." Library Journal
Table of Contents
Author's Note - xv
Part One, 1942 - 1
Part Two, 1943 - 125
Part Three, 1944 - 245
Part Four, 1945 - 315