World War II Saga Plus Giveaway

I love to hear from authors who want me to read their books. I suppose someday I might get tired of it, but not when I receive a book like The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein.
Truthfully, from the title and the description, it's not a book I might have picked up, but I'm so glad I did.
From the very beginning, the writing is beautiful. Ahh, so this is a well-written literary novel, I thought. Not one that tries to impress people with its words, but one that lets the story slowly unfurl as the reader connects to each character.
The author is obviously someone who loves Japan as much as I love France. The details about Japanese homes, culture, and customs are definitely intriguing.
The novel begins, both in New York and Tokyo in 1935, introducing us to characters who are not yet affected by the coming war. The saga continues through the midst of the war, focusing on attempted attacks and the devastation in Japan. Most of us probably know the results of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I was unaware that Tokyo was firebombed and largely destroyed along with thousands of residents killed.
But that isn't what this book is about either. It's about the people and how they survive and whether love can grow in spite of evil deeds.
I can't possibly explain why I loved this book, so let me share a couple of passages. Anton, an architect who lived in Japan for more than a decade was asked to help the U.S. government figure out how to best bomb Tokyo. He built a Japanese village using authentic materials. When he couldn't get the floor mats the Japanese used, the U.S. government supplied them from an unknown source.

Anton had tried not to think about the mats'"lenders" as he inspected each of the units individually. Like the ghosts of his flaming oboji, though, they came to him anyway, their former lives whispered from the scars and nicks etched into the rough weave: dents from a low table, laden with food or books. Nail varnish from a careless pedicure. A sickle-moon scuff mark, the approximate shape of a toddler's sandaled heel. They haunted him, these small marks left by lives upended. But as Anton repeatedly reminded himself, he had taken the job. He had to agree to the rules.  

What details. What a way to delve into this character's ghosts as he helped fight war against a people and architecture he loved.
 Here's a passage from a lunch betweem Anton and Hana, another main character who is a glamorous Japanese woman raised in Great Britain.

"I can't eat when I'm nervous."
"Nervous?"
She exhaled a lazy plume of smoke, studying him as though trying to decide something. Finally, she said: "Certain people -- certain men -- have that effect on me."
At first Anton wasn't sure he'd heard correctly: she'd said it in the same way she might casually bring up a food allergy. When he did register her meaning there was a moment of disorientation. She's not well, he thought, as he had two weeks earlier. It occurred to him that it might be a good time to reemphasize the fact of his marriage.

In spite of loving the writing in this book, something happened, a plot twist in the third chapter, that almost made me put it down. Even now that I'm finished, I see so many possible ways the plot could have been changed so that readers wouldn't have that jarring, book dropping occasion. And that occurrence does taint my view of the novel. I'm very intolerant of violence and cruelty. Still, the rest of the war atrocities throughout the book didn't affect me as deeply as this one event, which I'm not revealing because it would be a spoiler.

I would probably give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. I hope you'll give it a try.

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Interview with Jennifer Cody Epstein

Visiting today is author Jennifer Cody Epstein, who wrote The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, a truly lovely novel. You can see my review of her novel here. Hope you enjoy her insights.

Here's a picture of the author that I stole from her website.
Hope she doesn't mind.

Q. How would you sum up The Gods of Heavenly Punishment for those who haven’t read it yet?

 Tough to do in a few words, as I've been learning! But essentially, it's an exploration of a key (but often overlooked) moment of the Pacific War: the firebombing of Tokyo, which killed 100,000 civilians in a few hours. I approach the subject from both sides of the conflict as well as from both the years leading up to it and those in its wake. It's also a meditation on war in general--what we lose, but also what we gain in the aftermath of enormous tragedy. 

Q. What idea or event inspired you to write your novel? 

 I've always been fascinated by Japan, and by America's evolving relationship with it. I lived there for five years, and while I'd heard much from my grandmother about how hated and feared the Japanese were during the war (like most in her generation she was pretty thoroughly propagandized, I think, and was alternately fascinated and slightly shocked by my decision to study there as a student) I could never comprehend how our two nations had descended to such levels of deep, mutual hatred--and then emerged from the war's wake as such strong allies. Then my husband came across a mention of the firebombing in an interview he was conducting (he's a filmmaker and has been making a documentary about a war crime in Iraq), and he came back and asked me what I knew about it...which, I realized abruptly, was pretty much nothing. So I looked it up online--and was flabbergasted that an event of such enormous human cost and complex ethics seems to have been left out of the story of World War II for most of us. I wanted to fill in that gap for myself--and (hopefully) for readers. 

Q. As an author, how much research is required for a book like this? Do you research from home or does it include travel?

I researched a lot--which for me isn't as onerous as it might sound because I actually find researching much easier than writing (!) Most of it was through books (both fiction and nonfiction) written reports, online documents and images etc--but I also travelled back to Japan in  2009 and interviewed three extraordinary women who had lived through the firebombing and very much wanted their stories about it to be passed along to the next generation. 

Q. Which character do you relate most to in The Gods of Heavenly Punishment? Do you share traits with any of the characters?

 I think I'm a combination between Yoshi and her mother Hana. I share Yoshi's fascination with language and her sort of introverted, meditative view of the world--but also I relate to her mother's fear of rejection and her perpetual sense of not fitting in--as well as her alternating tendencies to both embrace her (perceived) eccentricities and suffer because of them.  

Q. Please share your writing story. How did you begin and what helped you succeed?

 I've always loved to write, and I've always loved books. When I was very small one of my favorite pastimes was to staple together sheaths of paper to make "noves" that I'd then fill with pictures and stories, and as I got older I was almost always deep into a real novel no matter what I was supposed to be doing (I used to hide them on my lap when I was theoretically doing my homework, and prop them on the piano when I was supposed to be practicing!). I think in part it's that passion that helped me finally become a "real" writer--it was pretty much all I ever really wanted to do. That said, I also think that community was essential for my development as a writer. Working on my own, I started dozens of projects but really only ever finished a few short stories between the ages of 18 and 28. It was only when I went to graduate school, and found myself surrounded by fellow writers who would not only motivate me to keep going but would challenge me to do it better that I wrote anything worth finishing--not to mention worth publishing! That experience taught me how crucial feedback and support is to the writing process--and as a result, I've continued to work with writing groups since graduating. 

Q. What authors or books influenced you? 

 So many! But I'd say for this book in particular Sarah Waters' The Night Watch and Ian McEwan's Atonement were particularly important--both for the way they handled war's devastation and the skill with which they intertwine very different perspectives into a single narrative. 

Q. Are you working on a new project now that we can look forward to?

 I have started several and am only now deciding which one to go ahead on--but I think it will be another look at World War II, this time from the European angle. But it will also be an exploration of female friendship--how it shapes us, and also how it can both fail and redeem us. I'll keep you posted! 

Hmm, I wonder if Jennifer has read my novel with its take on a moment in World War II. Maybe, like me, she realizes how quickly people who remember those wars are fading from our lives.

Thanks to Jennifer for your interview and for sharing  your novel.