Japanese internment camps aren’t something that gets brought up often (if ever) when we look back on American history. If they are, we talk about baseball; after all, when the winners write the history books, it’s easy to paint things over with a bright, happy paint brush. Leslie Shimotakahara explores this idea, and more, in her debut novel, After the Bloom.

Rita Takemitsu, a newly single mother raising her daughter in 1980’s Toronto, doesn’t know much about her family history. She’s never met her father, barely has a relationship with her older brother and, on the day that she has to send her daughter to stay with her ex-husband and his new girlfriend for the first time, Rita’s mother disappears. Meanwhile, Rita’s mother, Lily, is reliving the past she’d never tell her daughter about: her time at an internment camp in California, how she met Rita’s father, and how she ended up in Toronto once the camp was emptied.

Through flashbacks from Lily, the reader is able to see what she lived through—but would never tell her children about—during her time at the internment camp. Rita in her quest to find her mother, however, starts to piece together the truth about her family’s history.

Not only does After the Bloom examine the relationship between mother and daughter—between Rita and her mother, Rita and her daughter—but so too does it shed light on the terrifying reality of an aging parent. Broader still, Shimotakahara takes a hard look at the hypocrisy of a country who prides itself on freedom and acceptance of all people, but an exposure of the darkness born from paranoia.

Part mystery, part literary fiction, part historical fiction, After the Bloom is an important collection of the memories of a dying generation. It is a must-read for everyone.

After the Bloom is a story structured in a commonly used framework - two time periods, two women, a daughter trying to untangle the puzzle of her mother. The broader context is the internment of the Japanese in the United States during World War. The personal story is of a young woman with troubling relationships - her father, her daughter's father, and others she meets at the camp. In this book, the fiction and the history take two different points of focus, making it challenging to engage with.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2017/05/after-bloom.html

Reviewed for NetGalley

3.5 stars

Lily is missing . She always seemed a little off kilter to her daughter Rita who believed that it was because of her experience in the internment camp even though Lily never spoke about it. Then we get Lily's narrative and discover her past and wonder what exactly had affected her and caused her to create a different reality, to forget. Perhaps a combination of things - the awful things she experienced at night as a child, a marriage that was not exactly as she hoped it would be and yes the things that happened in the camp. The depiction of the camps seemed more focused on Lily and Kaz's relationship and Lily's confusion over her feelings for Kaz as well as his father.

This is a complex story in many ways about a dysfunctional family and relationships and about the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. I expected it to be more about Lily, but a good part of it was focused on her daughter Rita wallowing in her bitterness over her divorce. Okay - that's a traumatic thing but not a new topic in life or in fiction so course, I was more interested in Lily's story, in her secrets and where she was.

I've read a few novels which reflect on the Japanese internment camps and I wonder why so little attention has been paid to this in our school history books . The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII is a part of our history that isn't given the attention that it deserves. This was a 3 star read for me perhaps because I had different expectations of seeing a real picture of the camps. The most we see of what life was like in the camps is reflected in a single paragraph describing the pictures that are connected to Lily's disappearance. Yet I still see it as an important book since there has been so little focus on this in our history books and so I give it an extra half star.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Dundurn through Edelweiss and NetGalley .

This was a DNF for me. I grew up with a lot of children of internees in Sacramento, and the voice didn't ring true in my ear.

When her mother, Lily, disappears, Rita begins to delve into her past and learns that things weren’t as she always thought they were. The story moved slowly and bounced back in forth between Rita in the present and Lily in the past. The shifts between the two weren’t always easily discernible and many times I had to read well into a paragraph to realize which timeline the story was in. On top of that, frequently I felt that I was finally getting somewhere in a timeline and then the narrative would switch back. I realize this is normal for a book with multiple time lines but combined with the slow pace of the book it became frustrating. I also did not understand some of the characters’ actions. Specifically, Rita begins a sexual relationship with one of the people she meets while trying to uncover where her mother went. It was fast and felt out of place in the book. I also felt that Ms. Shimotakahara did a disservice to the internment centers. Why make up a fictional one? She did the research to learn what conditions were like. The riot she includes actually took place at Manzanar. Why not reference that one? I think I was hoping for a more personal look at what took place at the concentration camps, even as fiction, as was let down.

I found this novel a bit hard to follow at times. The novel seemed jumpy and the flow wasn’t consistent for me. I think the subject matter and the story itself was interesting but the way it was delivered, did not work for me.

In the past, Rita’s mother Lily, has disappeared for a few days but eventually she returns to her family and life continues. This time, Lily’s disappearance has Rita concerned. With her elderly mother gone, Rita contacts the police but they believe that Lily will eventually return like she always does. Rita decides to do her own investigating to see if she can locate her mother. What she soon finds out is that her mother was not only going to her Nisei Women’s Group but she started to attend another closed-group meeting, a group that Rita knew nothing about. When her mother talks about her past, she mentions camps but these conversations were short and without much detail. No one talked about these camps and the conversation was dropped. Now, Rita wants to know more about these camps but who is she going to get her information from? Able to locate the date and time of the next closed-group meeting, Rita hears the words redress and internment and she can’t possibly believe that her mother is associated with these individuals. Rita is slowly uncovering a part of her own history and finding her mother in the process.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Dundurn in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for sharing this novel with me.

In her contemplative first novel, Shimotakahara explores the long-lasting aftereffects of a disgraceful historical episode: the incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry during WWII. As she explains in an introduction, Lily Takemitsu is partly based on her paternal grandmother, who denied this part of her past.

In Toronto in 1984, Lily’s daughter Rita, a high-school art teacher and single mother, panics when she learns Lily has vanished. Her mother has the tendency to wander, but she’s never gone missing for days before. As Rita pursues leads to Lily’s whereabouts, she uncovers fragments of her hidden family history, including secrets about her father, Kaz, who she never met, and the time he and Lily spent in a place where “the sand blew so fiercely that stepping outside was like standing under a shower of pinpricks.”

The novel devotes equal time to Lily, a young woman once runner-up in the Cherry Blossom Pageant, who has been forced from one troubled living situation into another. The author paints a meticulous portrait of the dreary geography and fiery internal politics at the camp at Matanzas in California in the 1940s. Rescued by a rebellious photographer named Kaz after a fainting spell, Lily gets drawn into the ongoing animosity between Kaz and his father, the camp doctor.

Awareness of this novel’s topic is necessary for anyone living in today’s world. After the Bloom presents an affecting inside view of what Japanese-Americans endured, both within the camps and afterward. Indecisive and easily manipulated, Lily is an atypical heroine. While she loves her mother, Rita also feels frustrated by her silences and eccentricities. However, Lily’s character feels real, and her disconnections from reality are understood in the context of what she’s survived. Slow-moving at first, the story gains momentum as it continues, and the conclusion is especially satisfying.

(from the Historical Novels Review's May 2017 issue)

For all the atrocities of foreign wars that take place on the front lines and in the nations where the battles are being fought, there are often atrocities that happen back home; atrocities that get swept under the rug of history or dismissed as unimportant in the larger scheme of things. One such atrocity that is coming to light more in recent years—thanks in part to recent political moves that echo the problematic themes of this atrocity—is the internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II. Until reading Leslie Shimotakahara’s recent novel, After the Bloom which is in part inspired by her own family’s history in the American internment camps, I had no idea that camps like that were established in parts of Canada too. What her novel brings to life so importantly is that these camps had lasting effects at all levels—the individual, the family, and the community.
Rita knew her mother, Lily, had spent time during the war in an internment camp in California but since her mother never really spoke about it, Rita knows very little about that period of her mother’s life. It’s clear that it might be linked to the ways her mother can become ‘confused’ but Rita has more pressing things to worry about in the wake of her recent divorce and subsequent move. That is, until her mother goes missing. The police investigate but with no evidence of foul play, there isn’t much they can do. Rita takes it upon herself to look into why her mother might have left and where she might have gone. The more questions she asks, the more the answers seem to center around an incident that happened at the internment camp.
Narratively, the novel dances back and forth in time with chapters following Rita and her search in the 1984 and chapters following Lily’s experiences at the internment camp during the war. For the most part, the Lily chapters help provide deeper insight into what Rita is learning as she delves into her mother’s life for clues about where she disappeared to, but the structure also helps to add some drama to revelations Rita won’t have until later in the book—revelations that readers can probably figure out through getting to know Lily’s character in the past. While this can feel like false build-up—especially when the truth comes out later and the impact of the truth on Rita isn’t as sharp as expected—what it really ends up showing is how disconnected Rita is from her mother. Lily is not as scatterbrained or ridiculous as Rita’s sections of the novel would lead the reader to believe. There are moments of insight where Rita is able to acknowledge that some of her lack of knowledge is because she’s afraid to know or doesn’t want to know certain truths and that it isn’t just that her mother refused to talk about things or lied to her. This novel shows how much the parent/child relationship is a two-way street once the child is a full-fledged adult.
While the core plot of the novel ends up being very much a family drama, the background of the internment camps and their legacy resonates strongly and overshadows that central narrative in several places. I frequently had to remind myself that Rita’s storyline was taking place in the 80s and not the present day because so many of the issues faced by the Japanese Canadian community in the novel—especially their Redress Movement—is still a key issue for the many mistreated minority groups in the United States today (most notably it made me think of George Takei and how outspoken he has become about his time in internment camps growing up). This novel did a fantastic job of making sure the story was about the characters who experienced the camps rather than reducing them to just those experiences or the story to just the camps themselves. It stayed a story about people and a complex community that survived, though it didn’t emerge resembling the community that it had been when it went in.
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara will be available in all formats on May 9, 2017 (some formats are available now).

Big thanks to Leslie Shimotakahara, Dundurn Publishing, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

Probably more of a strong 3.5 stars likeable characters and believable relationships

Not much attention is paid to the horrific time in history during WWII when the North American governments decided to intern Japanese Americans due to fears of espionage. Shimotakahara found inspiration in her family history to write After the Bloom, a story about a daughter's despondency over her mother's tortured memories. Lily, Rita's mother, disappears, which leads Rita on a wild goose chase from Toronto to California. Not only does she desire to find her mother but she also discovers the repressed memories of her older family members. These recollections are so distressing to Lily that they have led to a life of complete confusion.

What I found most worrisome in the plot is Lily's relationships with the men in her life. Every man is either abusive or exploitive. There is no healthy relationship. No wonder she's delusional. "You've had a good life, haven't you?", she asks Rita. How can she answer?

After the Bloom begins with the disappearance of Lily Takemitsu. Rita, her daughter is familiar with her mother’s wanderings but never have her absences lasted this long. With little help from the police, Rita digs in herself and opens up a tragic family history that includes secrets of the family’s internment at a camp in the California desert during the World War II, their postwar immigration to Canada, and the father she has never known.

I've a history nerd, and the Japanese Internment camps during World War II have always fascinated me. This is another look at this tragic time in history.

The story is somewhat hard to follow, weaving in and out of memories, but over all, was a good read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for this review.

Pros:
~ Authentic, memoir-esque telling of the Japanese interment camps in America
~ Interesting look at v. flawed characters
~ Mother-daughter dynamics
~ Doesn’t shy from messy, disturbing, or taboo subjects
~ Gorgeous telling of Japanese stories
~ Extremely poignant ending that works well

Cons:
~ The characters are just unlikeable. It’s so hard to read about people I
don’t feel anything for.
~ Rita’s sections are not particularly interesting
~ The whole mystery is very obvious, so it’s frustrating that it takes Rita
the entire book to figure out where her mother went
~ Lily’s sections are really confusing due to her ... mental state?
~ It explores very interesting and important subject matter, but overall is
quite dry. Could be the characters.
After the Bloom covers a girl and her daughter. The girl, Lily, is young, beautiful, Miss Cherry Blossom, and was involved in a hideous time in history. She was Japanese-American in WWII, and was interned till the end of the war.

It covers Lily’s daughter’s life, years and years later. Rita is divorced, in her thirties, and dealing with her impoverished and emotionally-stunted childhood when her elderly mother goes missing. The book alternates between their two points of view; Rita’s in the present, searching for her mother and the reason she disappeared, and Lily in the 40’s while trapped in the Japanese interment camps.

This book was hard to rate. It deals with the heavy, disturbing topic of the Japanese internment camps within American and Canada, and just knowing such a thing happened makes me ill. However, Rita’s sections of the story were dry and repetitive, the presentation of the story is at times confusing, and there were no characters I actually cared about.

I am really glad I read this, though, because what Leslie Shimotakahara achieves is an evocative story and a sad, real depiction of the interment and its aftermath.

This book doesn’t shy away from hard, dirty topics. Lily was sexually abused as a child and it has ruined her life in many ways. She is desperate for attention and love, falls for the wrong men, is easily swayed into doing things she wouldn’t otherwise do. She is utterly spineless and pitiable. While I felt horrible for her, I never cared for her as a person, and she ends up doing horrible things to people who actually cared for her or protected her.

Rita, on the other hand, is self-pitying and dull. She hates her ex-husband, resents her family, and generally feels sorry for herself. The only time I appreciated her was when she showed love to her daughter. Her struggles are understandable, and the way she deals with them is probably realistic, but it doesn’t make for a sympathetic character. The ending, when she finally shows some real initiative, almost makes up for it.

The real highlight of the book for me was how well and authentically Leslie Shimotakahara portrayed the interment. The Japanese fairytales were deftly woven into the narrative, enriching the story and amplifying the travesty of the camps. When the focus is the treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war and beyond, to the present, After the Bloom shines. The characters were very flawed and a part of me appreciates that they were not martyrs, angels, perfect saints who had a horrible thing done to them. They were flawed, normal (and not-so-normal) people.

I appreciated the ending of the novel. It was sad and half-hopeful, half-not. It suited the book well.

If you want an intimate picture of flawed people during the Japanese interment and its aftermath, After the Bloom is for you.

This is a fascinating book. Epic in its sweep of a family and its secrets and incorporating mystery, love and a part of history that was new to me.
Rita's mother Lily Takemitsu goes missing during a hot summer in the 1980s. When she questions Gerald, Lily's husband, step daughter Rita along with the police are mystified by where she can have gone. Withdrawing cash and taking very little, suddenly her very vulnerable and sometimes forgetful Mother who has survived much in her life is nowhere to be found.
Unhappy with progress on the case and with little input from family Rita spends her time uncovering the area of Lily's life that has rarely been discussed - her internment during WWII in an internment camp for Japanese/American residents as fear spreads following the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Based on the factual Manzanar Camp in California, we follow a double narrative of Lily reliving her life as a young woman imprisoned in basic conditions. This is where she met the father of her children, activist and photographer Kaz, but also where she worked alongside the camp Doctor (Kaz's father) and observed the growing discontent as some interns stole food on the black market or gave information to the authorities.
Both Rita and her mother Lily are intriguing characters whose own personal dilemmas and position in their Japanese community start to reveal secrets and surprises.
I did some background research into the camps where over 120,000 American/Canadian Japanese people were seen as non-aliens and the main site at Manzanar is now a protected National Historic Site.
The journey many still do to remember those incarcerated there follows a similar journey in this wonderful book.

After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara

How is it possible to forget your past? That’s what Rita has always wondered about her mother, Lily and the forgotten history of the time she spent in Matanzas, an internment camp in California. Lily claims to have no recollection of her time at the camp, but the stories that Rita heard from her great Aunt Haruko prove otherwise. This was years before Rita was born, her father long gone. Decades have passed and Lily has disappeared. No one has any idea where Lily may be and Rita’s only choice is to dive into the past and find her mother’s story and the camp where her parent’s met and the riot occured.

The history following Pearl Harbor and the internment of Japanese-American citizens to camp as an act of martial law is one of many dark marks on American history. Seeing these stories brought to life on the page are emotional and gut-wrenching because they are littered with truths that many choose to ignore. Reading a story about someone who was actively denying their presence at the camp was an interesting way to tell this particular story. The narrative switched in After the Bloom from that of the 1980s with Lily missing and Rita frantically searching for her, to 1940s when Lily was interred in the camp and falling in love with Kaz, the man who would be Rita’s father. While the story was intriguing, the character and world development weren’t very strong. I was never overly invested in the life of the characters. I would have loved to for Shimotakahara to focus more on the history and events of the camp and less on the awkward love triangle that was developing in Lily’s head. When the issues of daily life in the camp and the struggle for representation was being discussed was when I was captivated by the story. I found my interest waning throughout many of the other aspects of the story.

A story that looks at the lives of Japanese-Americans and the pain that they endured during and after the internment is definitely a story that needs to be told, I simply wasn’t captured by the telling of this particular story. The love story within was more of a distraction and certain parts became really predictable. While the time spent telling the story inside the camp was fascinating it wasn’t enough to hold my interest throughout.

Excerpt from Review: "...After the Bloom is a powerful story that actually tackles a few subjects. It speaks about a time in our history that very few seem to know enough about, explaining the internment camps and the feelings of those who found themselves forced to live in them....I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and would definitely recommend After the Bloom to anyone interested in a good read."

I got this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback. I've read Farewell to Manzanar before, which is a book that's also about the Japanese internment camps. This plot of these two stories are quite different: Farewell to Manzanar's plot happens in real time whereas After the Bloom takes place years after the camps. However, it is because the story contains so many episodes of flashbacks that make lily's memories and flashback stories difficult to follow. I find myself being confused and needing to re-read certain passages in order to understand the plot or to connect one even to another. Although Rita's search for her mother was an easier storyline to follow, I still found myself either being confused or having questions as I read the story.
This novel certainly introduces the struggles and post-traumatic stress caused by the Japanese internment camps, while also discussing Asian Americans/Asian Canadians journey to learning about their own culture and their family history, which are so often neglected. Due to the plotline being hard to follow, it takes away the flow of the story. Although I'm pleasantly surprised that this isn't just another story like Farewell to Manzanar, I wished its plot was easier to follow.

This is such an interesting book. I was totally unaware of a Japanese internment camp in the United States during world war two. The story has two narrators and goes from past to present which is a concept I have always enjoyed. The mother has not told her family about the camp therefore leaving a big gap in her children's history of their father. As time goes on the grown children find out more about their family when their mother tries to recover something she left behind . This as a very enjoyable read and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes literary fiction.

This story follows Rita, who is looking for her mother Lily who is missing. While she is looking she comes across some deep secrets. The book flits between the two characters telling there story, with Lily being in a Japanese interment camp during the Second World War. The story is beautifully and carefully written with love. A great read.

When Rita’s mother Lily goes missing, Rita immediately begins her own search. When Rita realizes that Lily was involved in a movement for reparations for WWII Japanese internees, she must rethink her mother’s motives and the assumption’s Rita has already made. Alternating between Lily’s war time internment and Rita’s search, the book explores the issues of dissociation, memory and recover.

The modern day story seemed a bit lacking to me. I would rather have read about Lily’s life and taken out the back-and-forth story line. At times the book seemed to drag, and could have been formatted in a different way. Overall, not a bad story, but not one that I would re-read.

A mixed bag for me. The topic was interesting, but the characters not so much. Plus, the story lines were too confusing. Not a great read.