Annotation
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries--memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense-- one that leaves us shaken and changed. "Haunting.... A whodunit complete with courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence and at the same time a mystery, something altogether richer and deeper."--Los Angeles Times "Compelling...heartstopping. Finely wrought, flawlessly written."--The New York Times Book Review
Awards
1995 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
1994 Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award
1995 Pacific Northwest Bookseller Awards
Author Notes
David Guterson is the author of the novels Snow Falling on Cedars and East of the Mountains, and of the story collection The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind. His forthcoming novel, Our Lady of the Forest, will be published in October of 2003. A Guggenheim fellow and Pen/Faulkner Award winner, he lives in Washington State.
Characters
| Name | Miyomoto, Kabuo |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Fisherman |
| Traits | Japanese American |
| Married | |
| Father | |
| Murder suspect | |
| Name | Miyomoto, Hatsue |
| Gender | Female |
| Traits | Japanese American |
| Married | |
| Mother | |
| Name | Chambers, Ishmael |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupations | Newspaper manager |
| Journalist | |
| Trait | Unmarried |
| Genre | Love story Legal --Courtroom Historical Mystery Cinematization --Movie Fiction |
| Topics | Homefront during war First loves Childhood sweethearts Interracial relationships Japanese Americans World War II Japanese internment Relocation camps Land disputes Murder investigations Murder trials Community relationships Moral dilemmas Racism Justice Jealousy Commercial fishing |
| Setting | San Piedro, Washington Puget Sound, Washington Washington Island Courtroom |