Heart Mountain

by Gretel Ehrlich

Ehrlich explores the twin solitudes of political exile and geographic isolation in this powerful novel—the story of Japanese Americans forced into a relocation camp—set in Wyoming during World War II.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, War, Novels, Literary Fiction, Historical, World War II

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Gretel Ehrlich is an American travel writer, novelist, essayist, and poet born on a horse ranch near Santa Barbara, California and educated at both Bennington College in Vermont and UCLA film school. After working in film for 10 years and following the death of a loved one, she began writing full-time in 1978 while living on a Wyoming ranch where she had been filming. Her first book, The Solace of Open Spaces, is a collection of essays describing her love of the region.

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book description is somewhat deceiving describing this as "the story of Japanese Americans forced into a relocation camp-- set in Wyoming during WWII." It turned out to be not just about the internment camps and the people there, but a blend of their stories with the people in the Heart Mountain area . It provides a view of how the war impacted both the Issei, the Japanese immigrants and the Nisei, Japanese Americans and a lot more about the people living in the area that I expected.

There are two major alternating narratives, one of a young man in the town outside of Heart Mountain and one of a young man inside the internment camp. McKay is a cattle rancher who is deemed not fit to serve because of an injury but his two brothers are off to the war leaving him to tend to the ranch. Kai is Nisei, trying to figure out who he is - torn between two worlds and disillusioned with the country he was born in as he is captive in the camp. There of course are interactions between the people in both sides that makes for an appealing story line. An accidental shooting brings McKay to Mariko. I felt connected to these main characters and was always interested in what would happen with them. For me the problem was that there were just too many other characters especially outside of the camp and what was happening with them made the overall story of this shameful period in our history feel a bit diluted. I felt distracted from what I thought was the heart of the story.

It just didn't have the depth or intensity of Snow Falling on Cedars or When the Emperor Was Divine, two other books about the internment that I've read. However, this appears to be an accurate depiction of this history, as the author has interviewed people who actually were interned at Heart Mountain, conducted significant research at archives and universities as well as personally written accounts.

I received an advanced copy of this from Open Road Media Access through NetGalley.

[William Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sixty-six years-nearly to the day-after the 7th Cavalry of the US Army under the command of Lt. Col. George A. Custer met its fate in a decisive battle in the Great Sioux Wars at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the United States government built a concentration camp for some of its citizens in a bleak valley 150 modern road miles to the south of that famous battlefield. The camp was established to house Americans of Japanese ancestry who were deemed to be suspicious actors after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Sixty days after construction began in June of 1942, the first internees arrived on a spur of the railroad at a station named for the iconic limestone peak dominating the skyline eight miles west of the camp: Heart Mountain. Five years after that day in August,1942, my parents and two older sisters arrived to take up residence at the camp.
Heart Mountain, by Gretel Erlich is a novel I picked up only because I have personal ties to the camp which saw the last of the internees leave two years prior to my family’s arrival. Ms. Erlich tells the story in novel form of the impact of housing 11,000 people suddenly in a rural county populated by ranchers and farmers. During the war, it was the third largest city in Wyoming. She does well with character development and with the fractious interactions between the existing European-American community and the Asian strangers thrust into their local customs and traditions. Erlich’s story is an accurate history made personal by the fictional stories of the lives of those Americans who were unjustly imprisoned in an age where prejudice, bigotry and greed ruled much of the war effort. It is also a story about local people and their reaction to having a small city dropped into their rural county.
A few people in the surrounding area greeted the sudden arrival of trainloads of people with some amount of eagerness. The camp meant jobs. Ranchers had a new outlet for the beef they raised in nearby rangeland. Farmers provided wheat and other necessities. In exchange, internees produced quantities of vegetables and berries from the truck gardens they established along the irrigation ditch running parallel to the highway connecting Powell to Cody. Others in the outside community were angered by the prospect of enemy invaders or, at the least, sympathizers. This tension was only exacerbated by a number of the draft eligible internees resisting the call to service. Their slogan was “I’ll serve when I am free.” Each side had legitimate concerns. The fact that many internees did serve and a number of them were decorated veterans did little to assuage the prejudice of a rancher who lost a son, brother or father fighting in the Pacific.
The camp had a perimeter fence with guard towers and sentries. The main gate provided passage of goods and services from the outside world and allowed internees out to tend their gardens or to work in local businesses or for farmers and ranchers. Ms. Erlich exploits the fraught permeability of the camp to work in a love story as well. Will the beautiful internee elope with the rancher? Will she stay true to her roots? Will the families of each learn of the deceit? How will they reconcile their conflicted feelings?
My father, pregnant mother and two sisters arrived at Heart Mountain in the August of 1947. My father mustered out of the army in late 1945. He was among thousands of GI’s who were home from the war: men who experienced horrors beyond imagination, exhilaration of surviving, and the emptiness of what life promised them beyond the structure of the military. For many, the GI bill helped them move on. I don’t know why my father didn’t take advantage of it. Perhaps it was his feeling of immediate obligation to the daughter he knew and the daughter who was born while he was in Europe. He had been employed by the Bureau of Reclamation in Arkansas prior to the war as a surveyor/map maker with the Bureau when it was creating monumental reservoirs in northwestern Arkansas, and western Missouri. Lake of the Ozarks, Table Rock Lake, Bull Shoals were on the drawing boards in Little Rock when WWII interrupted family life for millions of Americans. The war effort required men of all employment experience and map making was one of them. My dad was assigned to the team making maps for the D-Day invasion and beyond. But that’s a story for another time. After an unsuccessful stint of trying to be a sheep rancher in western South Dakota he was able to use his surveying and map making skills to be re-hired by the Bureau of Reclamation in Wyoming. Due to an acute post war housing shortage, especially in rural areas, the Bureau made accommodations for men and their families in the recently abandoned internment camp at Heart Mountain.
The original 450 barracks had been hastily built with rough sawn pine boards covered with battened tar paper. After the first internees arrived as they were facing a harsh winter, insulation in the form of Celotex, a crude fiber board arrived for the internees to install. The barracks were arranged in a regimented military style and held 6 apartments, each of which accommodated a family group. A family group, as I understand it, could include multiple generations: Issei, older folks born in Japan, to Nissei, their offspring. Elderly, non English speaking refugees lived in the same confined space with newborns. The barracks were heated with wood burning stoves. The stoves may have provided enough warmth to keep people alive in the drafty apartments but keeping them fired must have been difficult throughout the fearsome north Wyoming winters. My older sister remembers riding the school bus to Powell for third grade. She says the trip during the winter was like traveling through a white tunnel. All she could see was snow. Apartments were made slightly more habitable by hanging sheets from the ceilings to create private spaces and hanging blankets on the walls to slow down drafts. I wonder now how none of those buildings burned. As no kitchens were in the barracks, dining was at one of 39 mess halls. Communal latrines served a block of barracks.
One building, more substantial than the rest, accommodated a small hospital, a steam plant and generator facilities. All of the barracks had electricity. REA had not reached this part of Wyoming and electric service didn’t exist outside of towns with their own generators. Lighting consisted of a bulb hanging from the ceiling in each apartment—except, of course, for the searchlights at the guard towers which overlooked the high barbed wired perimeter fence.

What I find remarkable is the resilience of those incarcerated Americans. They established schools, choirs, dance companies, a newspaper. Artists gave lessons to budding creative talents, musicians formed bands and orchestras. One jazz band was in demand in the nearby communities. A Boy Scout troop was a mainstay for many of the young men. Norman Mineta, internee, and Alan Simpson, son of a local rancher, became lifelong friends through their original acquaintance in the Boy Scouts. Simpson went on to become a US Senator and Mineta was elected to the House of Representatives and later was appointed the cabinet first for George HW Bush then again for Bill Clinton. They worked together to establish The Heart Mountain Interpretive Center which opened in 2011. A long list of famous and distinguished Americans who passed through the gate at Heart Mountain can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_M...
The decommissioned hospital was where my parents were living while my mother was pregnant with me. When Mary and I visited the site in 2009, the chimney and the remnants of the hospital were nearly all that remained of the or33iginal buildings. Many of the barracks had been sold and removed intact to other locations. Most of the others were demolished for the material they provided.
My family arrived in the summer when it must have been unbearably hot. They managed as homesteaders; making do with what was available. My older sister started school. My second sister was just more than a toddler. Dad had an office in what had been the administrative building for the camp. From time to time, he and a crew would go out surveying and gathering information to make maps of the region.
Summer turned to fall which my sister remembers as a warm, wonderful season. Suddenly, winter arrived in the form of seemingly endless snowstorms lasting for months. My sister remembers that winter with some amount of fondness. Bitter cold kept her and her friends indoors where steam heat kept them warm. Going outside to play or to catch the school bus was a cold adventure.
As winter came to a close, Chinook winds began to blow. The Blackfoot people call these warm, dry winds the "snow eater.” That’s how my sister experienced the beginning of spring. In a short time, piles of snow disappeared, the blanket of snow covering the prairie sublimated and revealed the promise of an awakening earth. My mother gave birth to me in April at the hospital in Powell. I arrived on the Chinook winds. A few months later Dad wrangled employment with the Forest Service and would be based in Albuquerque. One year after they arrived, the Jones family traveled by bus to Cheyenne and, like the internees leaving Heart Mountain, boarded a train to a hopeful future.
Fifty years later, when my mother was dying, I asked her about Wyoming and the trip to New Mexico, a foreign country for all their knowledge and experience. She said the train ride was an adventure into the unknown. The principle attraction to Albuquerque beyond having secure employment was the university. She and dad wanted the three of us to have a college education.
They arrived on a hot afternoon when a sand laden windstorm pelted them on the train platform with the family’s possessions packed into a single trunk and a tin suitcase. Mom remembered the Pueblo women selling jewelry and pots doing their best to keep their display blankets from blowing away.
“What were you thinking?” I asked.
“It was the best day of my life.” she said.
All three of us graduated from UNM.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming, (now a museum) was an actual internment camp where thousands of Japanese, both immigrants and American citizens, were relocated after Pearl Harbour. Greta Ehrlich uses the real place as a base for her fictionalised account of life in such a camp, and chronicles the interactions of the deportees with the local community. In this vivid and often heart-breaking novel we meet some of the Japanese as they try to adjust to their new life, and we also become acquainted with the local community, mainly farmers and ranchers. The focus is on McKay, a young man deemed unfit to fight and who struggles to keep the family ranch going whilst his brothers are away serving in the military. This is just the bare bones of the story and it is best to let the narrative unfold slowly, as in real life. I found this an insightful, compassionate and deeply moving novel. McKay stole my heart, and reminded me very much of some of Larry McMurtry’s heroes – strong, tough, capable, but with tender hearts. It’s a very human story, one in which politics and love often collide in unexpected ways. Ehrlich’s descriptions of the Wyoming landscape are beautiful, and her descriptions of the physical and emotional pain and loss of war equally evocative. An excellent read.

[Shirley McAllister · Rating 5 out of 5]

The war, The Mountain, and the Ranch

The story of a Wyoming community, a Japanese internment camp, a ranch at the base of the mountain and the occupants of all the above. How the participants of each interact with each other and within their communities. Love, romance, loss, racism and compassion all show up in this book in form or another. It is mostly a story of coping with feelings and conflicts within and how those affected cope with them. Very beautiful descriptions of the country of Wyoming and of the ones left behind. The effects of war on all, the loneliness, the pain suffered emotionally and physically and above all the understanding of what was, what is and what will be in there lives. This was a story of wartime which is written and reads like a western book. It was a good book and I would recommend it.

[Nicole Overmoyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read this book.

[Her Royal Orangeness · Rating 2 out of 5]

After thoroughly enjoying the WW2/Japanese theme in "East Wind, Rain" and "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," I was very much looking forward to this book. It was, unfortunately, quite disappointing.

The book really needs an editor...or an English teacher. Clunky sentences and awkward story construction made this a chore to read.

Also, I think the book summary is inaccurate, as more of the plot focus is on the residents of the town where the relocation camp was located. Wanting one thing and getting something else entirely makes it difficult to appreciate the book for what it is.

Finally, I thought the characters were one-dimensional. I never felt that I really knew them and wasn't able to emotional connect at at all.

[Judee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the other novels set during World War II and dealing with the internment camps, this one was poignant and relevant to me personally. My husband was an internee as a baby. His relatives were at Heart Mountain, Wyoming as well as Jerome, Arkansas. It was somewhat surreal to read this and not think of it as fact. There are facts included, like the actual wording od Executive Order 9066 that sent thousands of Japanese-Americans, many of them citizens into barracks surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. This read took me back there to mthe lives of the internees mas well as to the local people, most of whom were ranchers, trying to live through a time when the world was at war. It made me hope that that time is never repeated.

[Cindy Curry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I seldom rate a book one star, but Heart Mountain deserves it. The story which takes place in Wyoming near Heart Mountain, the location of a Japanese internment camp during the years 1942-1945. The main character, McKay, is left to manage a family ranch while his brothers have gone off to war. Other main characters include, Pinkey, an aging, alcoholic cowboy, and Bobby, the Japanese cook. Madeleine, a former love interest, who McKay has an affair with while her husband, Henry, is reported missing in the Pacific theater. Mariko, is interned at the relocation center with her wise grandfather, Abe-san. Mariko is married to Will, a political dissident; McKay falls in love with Mariko and they have an affair. There are many minor characters, some of whose purpose is not clearly explained. As much of the action takes place at the ranch and Snuff's Bar; the reader learns about the conditions of Heart Mountain Relocation Center through the eyes of Kai, who writes for the Heart Mountain Sentinel and his journals. Kai lives with his aging parents who sent Kai and his brother, Kenny, to the foster care system because of the father's mental illness.
There were times when I though Ehrlich was writing a bad romance novel. For instance, "...how her pendulous breasts, clanging together like buoy bells, could make him deaf." "He was trembling and could not make his arms and legs stay still, yet the bullet that had preceded his own entry into her always made the passage shockingly familiar." "He (Willard) watched them go arm in arm and saw how once McKay's penis struck straight out from his body, fell and rose again, as if lifting some invisible cargo."
There were verbal and physical fights between the sets of brothers: Kai and his brother Kenny who was serving in the military and McKay and his brother, Champ, who also had served. I believe the Ehrlich included these conflicts to introduce colliding political and personal circumstances.
Strange events and minor characters added nothing to the plot: Willard watching McKay and Mariko having sex, the cock fight, the characters of Wild Man and Venus, Carol's sexual encounter with a dying man that produced a baby, the unexplained death of one Pinkey's son.
In addition, the writing was disjoined; poorly written sentences and awkward story construction made this a chore to read. The overuse of similes was distracting: her breasts were like clouds wound tightly by strong winds, steam from the coffeepot flew over her shoulder like a feather boa, ...and the beautiful braids flung out, then bent under like broken legs. It felt like reading students' stories after a lesson on similes.
Lastly, much of the plot was driven by alcohol ~ long passages about Pinkey's alcoholic's binges. The author returns again and again to Snuff's Bar where characters are drunk.
I read Heart Mountain because it was the reading selection for May and I would not have read past page 100 if I was reading for myself.

[Ami Nosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant novel that transcends genres - it's a western, drama, a war story, historical fiction, and a complex story of complicated relationships and twisted romance with star-crossed lovers.

Admittedly, I purchased this book by cover, assuming it was a history of the Heart Mountain Internment camp. Being of Japanese American descent, I considered it to be a reference to the history of our people. I was initially disheartened to find out it was a work of fiction, which was, no less, written by a person of non-Japanese descent. In an era where cultural appropriation of Japanese culture is rampant in mainstream society, I assumed a novel some 50 years old would be, at best, a culturocentric and inaccurate read.

I could not have been less correct. The opening pages of the book are the authors thanking multiple parties for their consultations to ensure historical and cultural accuracy. It is obvious through this novel that the author didn't just do her homework, but worked for literary perfection. Her knowledge base of ranching, war history, Japanese American culture, U.S. geography, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were accurate to a level bordering on being esoteric. The diversity of thought, the development of multiple characters, the joys and sorrows and lessons packed into 400 pages painted a rich and unique tapestry of Heart Mountain circa World War II, both inside and outside of barbed wire.

Every character was complex. Every character was virtuous, and every character was flawed. Their development was refined and the reader cannot help but become emotionally invested not just in the in individuals who create the story, but the very disagreeable small town they inhabit. And while I cannot pinpoint if done on purpose, the closing pages of the hakujin protagonist's story felt more like a nihilistic Japanese novel than a traditional western novel, further blurring the lines of culture. Whether or not a happy accident, the writing ending felt masterful.

To be completely objective, there were places where the writing felt choppy and rushed; for that reason I have to subtract a star. I would hope that for the reader who would be interested in this story, my 4 star review would not be a detractor.

I would, and have, recommended this book to many who are interested in the history of Heart Mountain and the events that took place there during World War II.

[Janet Mahlum · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I really wanted to like this book..." How many times have I read that in someone's review? But the more I read, the less I liked it. It was more about Wyoming ranching than the "Relocation" camp. (If they are in our country, they are "relocation." If they are in Germany, they are "concentration.") I felt like that line about Narnia - "Always winter and never Christmas." I'm from southern Wyoming and maybe I just don't know how much it rains up north, but it seemed to always be raining. As I was reading the book, I felt like I was on a train, clackety, clackety, clackety down the track and the Suddenly: SCREETCH, bump, grind, lurch, as if the train didn't know if it wanted to stop, to go, to move forward to move backward. The book was so meandering it drove me crazy. Willard, mentally impaired - is he a pre-teen, a teen, a young man? Finally, on page 319/412 we find out. For Pete's sake...Why not tell us that up front? Images were forced and strained, e.g., "as if unfolding the sun..." I have never seen the sun folded or unfolding. At McKay's house, "she dressed her grandfather in a white ceremonial kimono." Now where in tarnation on a small ranch near a small town in Wyoming did she find a white ceremonial kimono? Give me a break!! I could go on and on but let me just say I think 2 stars is a generous rating.

[Georganne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story tells of a few families living at Heart Mountain Relocation Camp and the nearby town of Luster. Take a quick look into some of the lives of the Japanese-Americans that were sent to internment camps during World War II. Get some insight of their thoughts and the problems between the generations. Mix in some of the local people and their feelings about the war. Human lives and the emotions that surround the war.

[Isi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the theme of the book - the internment camps for the Japanese Americans - but I think the novel has too many characters, making it difficult to connect with all of them, and with secondary plots that lead nowhere.
Full review on my blog

[Dsinglet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two stories that connect through the love affair of a Wyoming cowboy and an interred Japanese woman living in the Heart Mountain interment camp. The story about ranch life during WWII is full of interesting characters and anecdotes about weather, animals and injuries. The camp has its stories of loss and hardship. Cowboy meets artist and their story blends the two worlds.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real

Ehrlich's writing is poetic and confidently pulls from many sources: ranching, Japanese culture, military jargon, American history. These characters will linger for me in their imperfection.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read with real, flawed characters. I do question the reality of McKay sleeping in the screened-in porch in -30 degrees F. That's asking for frostbite and death. The rest of the story was enjoyable.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating topic and I tried to like this book on it, but it just didn't ring true.
Sorry to say that I DNF this one....

[Rowan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably should give 3 stars. Really tricky to work out the point of some passages. Too much hard work on an interesting topic.

[Merrill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exquisite -- and painful.

[Izzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. I really wanted to read this, and I really tried - even though it slowed a reading drive I'd finally had back but jesus, its just so boring.

[Tonybe787 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finding this book to me was like finding buried treasure. Marvelous.

[Deborah Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

My nephew-in-law’s grandparents were Japanese prisoners at Heart Mountain, which made me curious about it.
It’s a mid-Western novel based around the Japanese prison camp and the surrounding area of mid-western ranchers. Of course, there is also a romance thrown into the mix.
It kind of reminded me of the sort of novels I used to read in my younger years, though it did give me a peek into the lives of these incarcerated Americans. I know that later on I’ll probably read a non-fiction book about the subject. Very interesting and profound chapter in American history.

[Hannah Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating read! Ehrlich stayed true to the Wyoming native land and time period. An enjoyable read that inspires the life of Japanese-Americans during this time.

[Thérèse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as a companion to Properties of Thirst..this novel from 1988 explores most of the same themes and they make a good pair.

[Kelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I hoped for historic accuracy in the form of a novel... and Heart Mountain Japanise internment camp in Wy did exist... as for historically more than that- I think it is pretty iffy. The main Japanese-American charactors were more exceptions than the rule... a graduate student whose parens gave him up to be raised by a white family when he was a child (so being intered brought him back to live eith his parents and no contact with his adopted family appears to remain or bother him), an older Japanese cook at the neighboring ranch that relates more closely to the Chinese immigrants because he cooked on the railroad, and a 20 something Japanese-American woman who is dating a French educated Japanese man and living with him (unmarried) in the room beside her father or grandfathers room.... with no conflict???...... and then there are the inacurracies in the farming/fanching story.... don't get me started. I only got 1/2 way through... skimmed the rest of the book and was ok with having skipped it.

[suz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read more about the Japanese internment camps in western states during WW ll and this fictionalized version included descriptions of the Heart Mountain camp and and its relationship to the surrounding western ranching communities in Northern Wyoming.
The story telling mode was rich and vivid. I gained a better understanding of what happens when cultures with different traditions are forced into close proximity. I couldn't avoid thinking about parallels to current conditions in America where fear and hostility are heightened by violent clashes that destroy peaceful or a least neutral relationships among groups.
I also appreciated the details of local fauna and flora, geography, and the hardships of rural life.

[Pammie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I expected but nevertheless an interesting peek at the lives of Japanese-Americans in a Wyoming internment camp during WWII. The author connects the lives of local ranchers and townspeople with those of their fellow American citizens forced to live behind barbed wire for the duration of the war.

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, still not quite finished but of what I read was really catchy and kept me entertained. The heart mountain was a japanese internment camp in wyoming during world war one. I thought it really connected with this generation somewhat because of the farmers and the ranchers and about the barbed wire fences.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned more about the internment of Japanese during the four years of the US involvement in WWII, tragic loss of democracy for our Asia immigrants. Also learned more about Wyoming ranch, the residents & their somewhat limited social life, the landscape, farm animals and weather. Put it all together for an interesting story of the USA in the 1940s, at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

[Kathy Cowie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why I picked it — I have read a bunch of books on the topic, and the multiple viewpoints interest me.
Reminded me of… When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka, and Tallgrass, by Sandra Dallas
For my full review — click here

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this but there were too many characters to follow and some that I just was not interested in. It had more information about life in Japanese internment camps in WWII but a lot more about the people living nearby.