Treadmill: A Documentary Novel

by Hiroshi Nakamura

Treadmill is a unique novel in many respects. Foremost is the fact that it is the only one that was written about life in the World War II camps for Japanese and Japanese Americans while that singular way of life was being played out. Nakamura captures exquisitely the thinking and mood of the people, accurately evoking the fears, anxieties, suspicions, cynicisms, and passions brought out by camp life. Nakamura almost succeeded in getting Treadmill published in the late 1940s. While editors and publishers thought well of the novel, they would not publish it as it was too sensitive an issue. Professor Peter Suzuki discovered Treadmill while he was doing some research on internment camps of Japanese Americans.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Catherine]

An incredibly important novel that I think should be taught in schools. You can really feel the immediacy of the experience of internment and the bewildering sense of confusion and injustice here. The nuanced portrayal of the tensions within the camp especially between generations and also between questions of Americanness and “loyalty” felt especially genuine, giving further credence to the idea of this “documentary” novel. Nakamura skewers the idea that the Japanese Americans were ever a monolith, not before the camps, nor in the camps - another absurdity that they were lumped together and refused their humanity and individuality.

I do wish the book would be further edited and footnoted, my copy had typographic errors and I found keeping track of character names difficult as many had few mentions, no introductions, but would recur sporadically. I was also interested in the historical antecedents behind the anecdotes in the novel, some of which were footnotes at the end but I think could have been expanded. I hope a scholar in the future takes on this project because the book really deserves a wider readership.