Book 28 of 52: Requiem

If a novel could be turned into a beautiful watercolour painting, this would be the one.

It’s a compelling story of a man's journey across the country and into his past as a child in a Japanese internment camp in the Fraser Valley, BC. It is a part of Canadian history that has been largely ignored and forgotten. The story alternates between the past and the present where we follow Bin a visual artist, his wife Lena and their son Greg. It reads more like a memoir of the main character, Bin, and I was surprised to find the author was actually female.

While I learned more about the internment camps in the 1940s, the best parts of the book were about Bin’s emotional challenges in present day. There were some rather funny bits woven in as well. One very funny scene was set in the 1970s with a neighbourhood BBQ that didn’t quite work out as they ended up huddles in the musty basement. It reminded me of my childhood home with the orange 1970’s couches in the basement and my own parents who would never cook enough food for family gatherings and doled out 1/2 a chicken breast and quarters of potatoes calculated to ensure nothing went to waste.  I had never even heard of "family-style" eating until I was 16 and left home.

I prefer to begin a novel with a good chunk of time – to get at least 50 or so pages in. For some reason I read this in small increments, so it took a while to get hooked into the story; or maybe the story itself had a slow start to it, I’m not sure.

That said, I love finding a good piece of Canadian fiction--with a built-in histry lesson no less.