Jamie Ford’s Love and Other Consolation Prizes is historical fiction with heart and hope. I felt like a time travel going back and forth 1962 to 1909 finding it a seamless journey. The entire premise seemed farfetched to me but the 1909 raffle event actually happened. Truth is always stranger than fiction. With some of the details switched around, the author brought this story to vivid life. Ernest’s story does not begin at the Seattle’s World’s Fair or as it is also known The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, it certainly is one of the tipping points in his life.

While the precarious life of Ernest is at the center of this book, it is also a book of the surviving with grace, the Post-Victorian times and society with the struggles of the people. With unforgettable characters, who lives are intertwined, I was sweep away in their story.

Best book, I have read in a long time. It is a powerful book sure to become a classic, that should be brought to the big screen. Love and Other Consolation Prizes does for the Chinese-American immigrants in the early 1900’s what Little Big Man did for the Native American perspective.

I absolutely loved Jamie Ford's "Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet" and was so excited to see that he had a new book out. Again, he does not disappoint.

Mr. Ford is a wonderful writer, who brings to life events and time periods in a well-written historical fiction. Parts of the story dragged, as it went back and forth between the story of young Ernest and current day (1964) Ernest, and I found parts of the story not detailed well enough for me. That means it was well written, because I didn't want it to end!

This is a great book for an empathetic heart. Life and choices are not black and white, and sometimes redemption and kindness can be found in places and people one wouldn't expect.

If you liked "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," you will like this story, too.

Have you ever loved 2 people and wondered which should be your destiny? "Love and Other Consolation Prizes" chronicles an immigrant boy's love of 2 women, another immigrant and a local beauty. Should he stay where society would guide him, or take that risk and go for another challenge? Ernest, a mixed-race boy from China is sold by his mother to traders who bring him to Seattle in the early 1900s. He lives an orphan life until he finds himself in a high class brothel that becomes his home. Two young ladies steal his heart and he struggles to decide where to declare his loyalty. This historical fiction is set in two Seattle world's fair eras, with wonderful descriptions of each fair. I felt like I was walking through the fairs, smelling and tasting their offerings.

I have read 2 other Jamie Ford novels about Asian-Americans in the Seattle area and enjoyed this as much as my favorite, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet". The variety of characters hooked my interest, their experiences kept me reading. I felt the joys and sorrows as they were shared.

I recommend this book to adults of all ages. For those who can remember the 1962 Seattle Fair, you will enjoy the comparison with the epic fair of 1909.

<p>This book is sad at times, but also very heartfelt and inspirational. It is based on a true story, which is one of my favorite types of books to read.</p>

<p>Juju finds a newspaper clipping from <em>The Kennewick Courier.</em></p>

<p><em>Seattle – A boy, the charge of the Washington Children’s Home Society, was one of the prizes offered at the exposition. His name is Ernest and maybe he will have a surname if the winner, holding the proper ticket, comes to claim him.</em></p> 

<p>Juju is Ernest Young’s daughter and a reporter for the <em>Seattle Post-Intelligencer.</em> Upon finding the newspaper clipping she confronts her dad and wants to know if he is the Ernest in the article.</p>

<p><em>“It says Ernest. Was this you? I mean – you once told me how you ended up at the Washington Children’s Home after you came here from China. And you said you were given a job as a houseboy after the world’s fair. You told me that’s where you met mom.”</em> </p>

<p>Ernest is hesitant, but eventually opens up about his past as well as Juju’s mom Gracie’s past.</p>

<p><em>Ernest sighed. He didn’t know how to explain that his childhood was also Gracie’s childhood. And that whatever indignities he’d suffered through, hers were a thousand times worse – especially in the eyes of their friends and neighbors.</em></p>  

<p>This story is told in alternating time periods, the early 1900’s and 1962. The early 1900’s spans several years from the time Ernest was very young in China, through his travels to America, and how he ends up at the Tenderloin.</p>

<p>This is a beautifully written love story, but it’s really so much more. It’s a touching story of survival and perseverance. Ernest did not lead an easy life, but he always made the best of what he did have. It isn’t until he arrives at the Tenderloin, albeit a gentlemen’s club, that he finally finds a place to call home. It’s there that he meets two girls his age, Maisie and Fahn. The three of them become best friends and he finds himself falling for both of them. Who does Ernest decide to love forever and have a family with? You’ll have to read the story to find out.</p>

<p>I read and loved The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and I’m very happy to say that Jamie Ford has written another wonderful book. Those who love historical fiction won’t want to miss out on this sweet story.</p>

<p>*Thank you NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and Jamie Ford for the opportunity to read and review this book for my honest opinion.</p>

I've read one other book (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet) by Jamie Ford and loved it. This book was another wonderful example of Mr. Ford's writing. This novel is full of colorful characters who make the story memorable. Definitely recommend to all.

My Review: 4.5 stars

Love And Other Consolation Prizes is a historically rich fictional tale inspired by the true story of an infant that was raffled off at Seattle’s World Fair. In reality, the winner never claimed the infant and this child’s whereabouts is still a mystery. In this novel, the raffle is for a mixed race older child called Ernest, who is twelve years old. Jamie Ford works wonders as he spins a fabulous telling of this child’s fictionalized life.

This book starts in the early 1960s and alternates back in time to the early 1900s as Ernest’s story unfolds. So much history is shared about Seattle and the living and social conditions of the Chinese immigrants. After recently reading The Girl Who Wrote in Silk, I was introduced to the immigration from China to Seattle and how hard it could be. It was no different for Ernest as he is orphaned many times over and his strength and character are tested multiple times. He is a character that the reader will both ache for and cheer for as he makes his way in the world.

The other characters in the book are so well formed. Their descriptions and personalities allowed this book to truly be a movie in my mind. Fahn, Masie, Flora, Miss. Amber and The Professor were a few that became etched in my imagination, all flawed yet all doing the best they could. Through these characters, we see compassion, manners, honesty, love, loneliness, loss, madness, bravery, mortality and vulnerability.

Ernest’s life as an adult gives him much time to reflect, especially because his daughter is an investigative reporter who is researching the 1909 World’s Fair, aka the Alaskan-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Additionally, Ernest’s wife Gracie, who is suffering from syphilis related (unknown to family and friends) dementia, is having sudden memories pop into her head and right out her mouth. Ernest is sharing the story his way, on his own terms, before Gracie says something that could damage his girls’ opinions or feelings for their parents.

I’m grateful that I had an early opportunity to read this wonderful tale of what it means to have a family. Thanks to Ballantine Books and Netgalley.

By the author of "The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet', this book gives another glimpse of life for the Asian (then called Oriental) immigrants to Seattle in the early 1900s particularly those who were sold as prostitutes and maids to Madams. We also get to see the side of town, particularly the women, who fought against these homes (but not the selling of immigrants). Ford's writing is really good and the story he tells is poignant, sad and sweet.

As a native Washingtonian who spent 5 years in Seattle, I love Ford's historical fiction that takes me to a Seattle at once familiar and foreign. My local history isn't great (before this book, I had no idea there was an Alaska-Yukon-Pacific exhibition in Seattle in 1909 - oops!), and I know this is fiction, but it seems well-researched and based around historical places and events.

The story of Ernest's journey from China to the PNW is heartbreaking, but his story and its intersection with Fahn and Maisie is captivating.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33566868-love-and-other-consolation-prizes" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Love and Other Consolation Prizes" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498672456m/33566868.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33566868-love-and-other-consolation-prizes">Love and Other Consolation Prizes</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1421619.Jamie_Ford">Jamie Ford</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1992567084">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This was a beautiful heartfelt novel based on the true story of a 12 year old boy who was raffled off as the prize at the 1909 Seattle World's Fair. <br />This story starts with the boys beginning in China, his journey and arrival to America, and his growing up in a brothel where he fell in love with two different young girls. <br />The story takes us back and forth from 1909 to the early 1960's, from him as that young boy to a older man with adult children and how his love for these two young girls from the brothel had shaped his life.<br />Beautiful ending to this story!!<br /><br />Thank you to NetGalley and Ballentine Books/Random House for the advanced copy!
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/12851291-karen">View all my reviews</a>

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

I’m a huge fan of Jamie Ford. His novels are so well written and the stories are always very emotional. Love and Other Consolation Prizes is no exception. Ernest is a character that it is easy to love. His wife barely remembers him and he is struggling to adjust to a new life where they no longer live together because her memories of him are so few. But with the fair coming to Seattle all of the memories he has of China, his coming to America, his life as a teenager after being auctioned off and claimed by Madam Flora. And of course, there’s Maisie and Fahn. The love they had for each other and the truth behind his wife’s illness. It’s all a mystery that comes together over the passage of time.

I am definitely recommending Jamie Ford’s latest novel. His strength as a writer who can weave these very intimate looks at the past and the present, while also touching on racial hardships and cultural bias, is hard to match. Each character had a great amount of depth, with world building full of incredible detail to accompany it. I found the change in narrative between the past and present was done very smoothly with just enough information provided to move the plot along at a steady pace and keep readers invested. This novel was simply very well done.

I was thrilled to be approved for the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of Jamie Ford's latest novel, "Love and Other Consolation Prizes", and would like to thank the author and the publisher, Ballantine Books for that privilege. I requested this title because I have thoroughly enjoyed Ford's prior novels, especially "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet". I was not disappointed and highly recommend this novel as well.

The story alternates between 1962 and 1909-10 in Seattle. IN both those years, Seattle was host to a World's Fair, each exposition playing a part in the story of Earnest Young, an half-Chinese half-American boy "sold" to an American by his mother. We learn of his voyage in the depths of a freighter with many other Asian children, and his first years being 'sponsored' by a society maven. At the earlier Worlds Fair, he is raffled off, and ends up in the employee of a high-class bordello on the outskirts of the city. The story of his youth there, the women he meets, the girls with whom he falls in love, and his departure from that life make up the earlier part of the story. The later years show Earnest as an adult, looking back on his early life because his daughter, a journalist, has found a unique angle on the second Fair - a story of a young boy "given away" at the first Fair. As she questions his memories of the fair and discovers he was that boy, he struggles to share his memories while preserving the privacy of his wife, who suffers from disease-related memory loss. Both stories are lovingly and deeply told. Ford uses wonderful language and well developed characters throughout, while giving deep sense of the time and place.
One particular passage, spoken by Earnest, does well to summarize the feeling of the book and the story it tells: "We all have things we don't talk about, Ernest thought. Even though, more often than not, those are the things that make us who we are."

Again, a well written novel, with an intriguing story, I highly recommend "Love and other Consolations Prizes" for readers of historical fiction and those who enjoy well crafted, unique stories.

"Love and Other Consolation Prizes"
This is a 4.5 star book. I love, love, love this author, Jamie Ford. Jamie Ford writes a beautiful historical novel.

After reading "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" I jumped at the opportunity to read this book..

Fascinating story that begins in 1902. A young boy, Yung Kim-ai, aka Ernest Young has a Chinese mother and Western Missionary father. Ernest's mother is unable to care for him and puts him on a ship to America.

At the Seattle Worlds Fair, Ernest becomes the prize to a raffle. The winning ticket is a Madam of a high class brothel.

The story jumps from the early 1900's to 1960's.

Ernest has two daughters, Holly and JuJu. Juju is a newspaper journalist and discovers the story of a boy raffled at the Seattle Worlds Fair. She convinced her father to let her publish his story. In the process many family secrets are uncovered.

The author of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is back and you will not want to miss his latest endeavor. Once again based in Seattle, Ford travels between the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific exposition in 1909 and the World's Fair of 1962, as three delightful characters take us on the journey of their lives. Yung, soon to become Ernest, escapes starvation and death in China, only to be shuffled between foster homes and state schools, leading to the ultimate humiliation - being a raffle prize at the fair. As the madame of the hottest house of 'ill repute' wins Ernest, he finds his first true home in the red-light district. Here he meets Maisie, the daughter of the madam, an inveterate tomboy and free spirit, and Fahn, a young Japanese housemaid with a sass and vulnerability that will break your heart. Jamie Ford is the master of literary children who are wise without being false, who see the world in deep and meaningful ways, and who show adults the true definition of loyalty and love . Life in the Tenderloin is not for the faint of heart, and the consequences of their choices last for a lifetime. Read this book - your heart will be glad you did:)

In 1909, Seattle was the time and place for the Alaskan-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. It brought more welcomed exposure of the area, a relatively unpopulated area still, following the 1905 Alaskan gold rush, and the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland. For Seattle, 1909 was a chance to have the attention of the world on their city.

“Love and Other Consolation Prizes was inspired by the true story of an infant boy who was raffled off at the 1909 Seattle World’s Fair, as a prize, by the “Washington Children’s Home Society.” Surrounded by miracles of modern science such as a wireless telephone; a machine for butchering salmon; incubators holding premature babies – a human child, Ernest, was auctioned off.

In Jamie Ford’s story, the boy that is raffled off is a half-Chinese, half-American twelve year-old boy, Ernest is the name given to him on his arrival, but in China he was Yung Kun-ai. He’s been living at the Home for a while, a charity student, and believes that this chance to attend the World’s Fair is a dream come true, until he realizes that he is the child to be given to the one with the winning raffle ticket.

Before he has a chance to process this betrayal, he is working at a brothel, one with a madam who believes in educating her girls. He is to be their houseboy. Maisie, the daughter of Madam Flora, befriends him, as does Fahn, a scullery maid. Both vie for his affection, but his heart belongs to both – he can’t choose, will not choose. Or, as someone in my family used to say, he “willn’t” choose.

In 1962 Seattle, Ernest’s daughter is trying to capture the eye of her editor with a story about the opening of Seattle’s new World’s Fair, merging the “then” of the 1909 expo and some of the life experiences of those who attended the opening of the expo, against the opening of the new fair. Knowing her father had been there, the questions begin.

Judgements, innocence, devotion, love, losing those we love, as well as the loss of memories are at the heart of this novel. I loved the historic details, from the seedy tenderloin district to the hallowed halls of the Library; this was a world I disappeared into, even if it wasn’t all glitter and glam. I loved these characters, from the uppity judgemental Mothers of Virtue to the sassy Fahn, these characters felt so real, it was easy to get swept away into this story, to care about these people, and to read their stories about the cost of real love, and the cost of love bought and sold on the streets.

Those roads not taken, not chosen. One small moment in time that completely change the trajectory of one small life, but what a life!


Pub Date: 12 Sep 2017

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Ballantine Books / Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine

Definitely a 5 star read for me. I loved the characters in this book and found myself unable to put the book down as I wanted to know more. It was very moving and extremely well written. A book I would highly recommend to friends.

Jamie Ford has done it again. The author of a couple of my all -time favorite books ( Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Songs of Willow Frost) once again provides his readers with a heartbreaking and compelling novel, inspired by the true story of a month old infant boy named Ernest raffled off as one of the prizes at the 1909 Seattle World's Fair.
In Ford’s imagining of the tale, Ernest Young is a twelve year old half-Chinese orphan. As a charity student at a local boarding school, Ernest is delighted when he is given the opportunity to go to the World's Fair, but once there he learns he is to be one of the prizes raffled off to “a good home”. The holder of the winning ticket is the glamorous and somewhat notorious madam of an upper-class brothel that caters to the rich and famous gentlemen of Seattle. It is in this unusual setting that Ernest finds the first true family he has ever known when becomes the new houseboy of the establishment.

Now some fifty years later Seattle is once again hosting the World’s Fair and Ernest is reminiscing about his life and the lives of those he met in those intervening years. As the narrative moves back and forth in time readers are introduced to a cast of vibrant characters who permeate and influence Ernest’s life.

Ford is a master at capturing the American scene in the early 20th century with a tale that runs the gamut of human emotions, foibles and prejudices with his tale of a man who faced all of life’ challenges and survived them all without ever losing his compassion and the ability to love.

This is an ideal choice for any book club since it offers a multitude of topics for in depth discussion.

Talk about a page turner! I finished in one sitting.

I knew that I had to read this one, once I saw that it was set in Seattle. I am a lover of the Pacific Northwest and I loved the dual history timeline in this book!. It is so wonderful that Ford honors his heritage in his writing. And this book was no exception. It began with young Ernest in China when he with his mother and then he was saved and brought to the states where he was auctioned off at the 1909 World's Fair or the Alaskan-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.
Ford is such a master-full story teller. I felt like I was there along with Ernest as he went through the fair, the sounds, the smells, the tastes. And then in the time he lives at the Tenderloin, I could picture it's grandness and how the characters filled up the space.
The other half of the story set in 1962 is dealing with his "wife" Gracie, who is actually someone who is with him the whole time at the Tenderloin, dealing with her memory loss and illness. But she comes back to him and he is able to regal memories with her and with their two daughters.
I couldn't stop reading this novel and I came to love all the characters and how they shaped each other's lives. The only thing I wanted to know more of was how Gracie, adapted the name Gracie or Gracious, specifically when it happened. I don't want to give away who she is., so I won't say anymore than that.
I adored the characters and the setting and really enjoyed learning about all the history of those time periods. This is a great book for anyone who has liked Jamie Ford's other works and who love historical fiction with a sweet ending.

Ford's debut novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was one of my absolute favorite reads, not only of the year I read it but one I still think about and consider in my top reads of all time, so it was no wonder how crazy excited I got when I saw he had another release coming out and in the same vein as his first. I don't think I've ever hit a request button so quickly as I did for it. In fact I stalked Netgalley until it was available because I just couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I knew it was going to be something special, something emotional and something so worth my time and all the feels I would go through while experiencing it.

Ford knows how to weave a tale riddled with history and heartbreak, hope, and love unlike any other author out there. He truly is a master at what he does. It isn't often that one can make you crave history, romance, and a happily ever after, along with struggling and feeling right along with the characters. To be both sad and happy at once, along with heartbroken and angry for everything we put one another through as a people and as a country and as a nation.

His words are powerful in every way imaginable and it is so incredibly easy to get wrapped up in the story and the characters themselves until you are completely consumed by them and want nothing more than to see how it will all come together and wishing like crazy that there will be a happily ever after when all is said and done.

This story moved me. It touched my heart and rocked my world. The characters, the setting, the circumstances. I couldn't have asked for a more heart felt, emotional read. I loved every single minute of it and I didn't want it to end but at the same time, was eager to see how it would.

Once again Ford has exceeded all my expectations and once again touched my heart and soul with his beautifully written stories and unforgettable characters. This story will forever live on min my thoughts and memories.