After the Bloom

by Leslie Shimotakahara

A daughter’s search for her mother reveals her family’s past in a Japanese internment camp during the Second World War.

Lily Takemitsu goes missing from her home in Toronto one luminous summer morning in the mid-1980s. Her daughter, Rita, knows her mother has a history of dissociation and memory problems, which have led her to wander off before. But never has she stayed away so long. Unconvinced the police are taking the case seriously, Rita begins to carry out her own investigation. In the course of searching for her mom, she is forced to confront a labyrinth of secrets surrounding the family’s internment at a camp in the California desert during the Second World War, their postwar immigration to Toronto, and the father she has never known.

Epic in scope, intimate in style, After the Bloom blurs between the present and the ever-present past, beautifully depicting one family’s struggle to face the darker side of its history and find some form of redemption.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Canada, World War II, Literary Fiction, Book Club, War

328 pages, ebook

First published April 15, 2017

About the author

Leslie Shimotakahara's memoir, The Reading List, won the Canada-Japan Literary Prize, and her fiction has been shortlisted for the KM Hunter Artist Award. She has written two critically acclaimed novels, After the Bloom and Red Oblivion. After the Bloom received a starred review from Booklist and is Bustle’s number one choice in “50 Books To Read With Your Book Club,” while Kirkus Review praised Red Oblivion for displaying “virtuosity in this subtle deconstruction of one family’s tainted origins.” Her writing has appeared in the National Post, World Literature Today, and Changing the Face of Canadian Literature, among other anthologies and periodicals. She completed a PhD in English at Brown University. Her third novel, Sisters of the Spruce, will be published in spring 2024. She and her husband live in Toronto’s west end.

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Lily is missing . She always seemed a little off kilter to her daughter Rita who believed that it was because of her experience in the internment camp even though Lily never spoke about it. Then we get Lily's narrative and discover her past and wonder what exactly had affected her and caused her to create a different reality, to forget. Perhaps a combination of things - the awful things she experienced at night as a child, a marriage that was not exactly as she hoped it would be and yes the things that happened in the camp. The depiction of the camps seemed more focused on Lily and Kaz's relationship and Lily's confusion over her feelings for Kaz as well as his father.

This is a complex story in many ways about a dysfunctional family and relationships and about the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. I expected it to be more about Lily, but a good part of it was focused on her daughter Rita wallowing in her bitterness over her divorce. Okay - that's a traumatic thing but not a new topic in life or in fiction so course, I was more interested in Lily's story, in her secrets and where she was.

I've read a few novels which reflect on the Japanese internment camps and I wonder why so little attention has been paid to this in our school history books . The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII is a part of our history that isn't given the attention that it deserves. This was a 3 star read for me perhaps because I had different expectations of seeing a real picture of the camps. The most we see of what life was like in the camps is reflected in a single paragraph describing the pictures that are connected to Lily's disappearance. Yet I still see it as an important book since there has been so little focus on this in our history books and so I give it an extra half star.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Dundurn through Edelweiss and NetGalley .

[Taryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

What good could come of knowing you’d fallen out of time, your whole life seized away from you?

Toronto, Canada in the 1980s: Three days have passed since anyone has seen Lily. She has always been prone to wandering off, but she usually returns within a few hours. She has never been missing for this long. Her daughter Rita has always resented her eccentric behavior, but Rita would forgive everything if she could just get her mother back. The police say there's no evidence of a crime, so the burden is on Rita to search for clues to her mother's whereabouts. Lily has never been open about her past; in fact, she denies the worst parts ever happened. Rita digs deeper into her mother's history and discovers there's much more to Lily's story—and consequently, her own.

Matanzas Internment Camp, California in the 1940s: Lily has a history of memory problems. She had to dissociate to make it through her horrific childhood. When Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians were forced into internment camps during World War II, eighteen-year-old Lily was interred at Matanzas. She falls in love with the rebellious photographer Kaz and becomes close with his father, the camp doctor. She plays a role in the events leading up to the Matanzas Riot because of her desperate need to love and be loved. Torn between love and doing the right thing, her need to retreat into a fantasy world grows stronger. Is Lily even capable of knowing what the truth is?

Rita thought about the Japanese fairy tales Lily had once told her, all the stories of sudden disappearances and reversals of fortune. Girls who dropped iridescent eggs and accidentally killed their unborn children — their resplendent, palatial surroundings suddenly vanishing. Young men who opened boxes they’d been forbidden to look inside, only to be confronted by clouds of smoke and broken mirrors that revealed faces of old men. None of us are where we think we are. None of us are who we think we are. The present constantly disappears, time violently yanked away. That inevitable process of aging could be mysteriously — tragically — accelerated. So many of these tales were about lives evaporating, futures cancelled in a heartbeat.

This story was inspired by the author's own family history. Leslie Shimotakahara is a fourth generation Japanese-Canadian whose grandparents were interned during World War II. Matanzas is a fictional place, but it's loosely based on the actual Manzanar incarceration center. I was glad that I read George Omi's memoir American Yellow right before this book, because it provided helpful context and vocabulary. After the Bloom book features an older character, so it gives more insight into the adult rivalries and resentments. The chapters alternate between Rita and Lily's perspectives. Rita has never had a healthy relationship with her mother. When Lily acts helpless, Rita feels "this cruel, uncontrollable, animalistic urge to tear apart the little world her mother had fabricated out of tissue-paper lies and delusions." Rita manages her time with Lily, because "too much chit-chat would only fill her with irritation or worse yet, that gnawing, empty feeling: they’d never see eye to eye on anything." The differences between them seem unimportant now that Lily is missing. Rita is determined to find her mother. She's also dealing with a recent divorce and insecurity over her six-year-old daughter spending time with her father and his new girlfriend. Lily's chapters cover her time in the internment camp and the shaky rebuilding of her life afterward. Lily chapters are more focused and she's the most interesting of the two characters, but she's difficult to connect to because she's so adrift. Her loose grip on reality and the way she is a supporting character in her own life makes her chapters feel fuzzy around the edges.

Nature on the verge of dying was often more beautiful than at the height of its bloom.

Secrets are kept to protect the secret-keeper and those around them, but sometimes knowing the truth can give people perspective and closure. Rita initially mocks the paranoia and conspiracies of her mother's generation, but she realizes their fears are justified when she begins to dig deeper into her mother's past. Men in dark suits were out to get them. Many of their family members were whisked away in the middle of the night to be interrogated, some of them never to be seen again. Family bonds were dissolved and generational wealth was lost. After they were released from the internment camps, they had to start from nothing in a hostile environment. Rita had experienced prejudice due to her Japanese descent, but she is shocked to hear about the level of discrimination suffered by Japanese-Canadians who are only a decade older than her. She was aware of the internment camps in the United States and Canada, but she had never considered the full extent of what her mother had been through. In context, Lily's idiosyncratic behavior (the well-stocked wallet, extreme frugality) suddenly makes sense. Lily becomes more than just her mother, but also a young woman who came from nothing and raised two children alone. As a young mother and recent divorcée, Rita now realizes what incredible odds Lily faced. With a new understanding of Lily's past, Rita may also come to understand how her family became so dysfunctional and why she and her brother had such different childhoods.

“Yeah? I’ve heard rumblin’ about that stuff. Sure, it was bad what happened, but we’ve all had to take the short end of the stick from time to time. That’s how history works — winners and losers. If all the losers wanted the government to write ’em a cheque, where’d the handouts stop?”
“Maybe if the government didn’t have its head up its ass so much, it wouldn’t have to keep writing cheques.”

Shame touches everyone in this story.
• As a child, Rita was sometimes ashamed of her heritage and her mother: "It was bad enough being Japanese. ... The last thing she wanted was to be seen as both the Japanese girl and the girl with the crazy mother." Now she is ashamed of her new status as a single mother and her drop in social class.
• Lily feels shame when she realizes how all of the men in her life have used her. It's always been easier for her to tell people what they want to hear and she's ashamed that she remained silent when it mattered the most.
• An entire generation is ashamed. In the internment camps, Lily watched "distinguished men reduced to beasts of burden." When everyone was allowed to return to their lives, many were willing to do anything to assimilate, including hiding their culture:"Forget everything, turn the other cheek. Pull yourself up by your goddamn bootstraps."  Some people were so ashamed of what happened to them that they withdrew from society completely.
• Governments are ashamed of their actions and gloss over shameful events in their history books. The euphemistic view of the internment camps and the government propaganda efforts give those whose rights were never in question a privileged view of what happened: "No one had been comfortable with all those Japs living off the fat of the land anyway while the rest of America had suffered wartime shortages." Rita is frustrated with the concept of the "model minority" and how some community members are exalted as examples of how polite and strong one should be after their rights have been trampled. Anyone who doesn't behave the "correct" way is seen as the problem, rather than the thing they were forced to endure.

Everyone, perhaps, had these faint, staticky shadow selves following them around, like degraded clones. Yourself, but not yourself. Things you’d done, but couldn’t believe you’d done, would never acknowledge. Parts of yourself you couldn’t bear to own.

The ghosts of the past linger, long after they were thought to have been left behind. Rita and her brother always knew there was something wrong, but they had to pretend not to see it. Because of all the secrets and shame, Rita has to deal with a gaping hole in her family history, as well as a distant relationship with her mother. Both Rita and Lily develop some type of split self to deal with demanding circumstances. In order to move forward, both women need to deal with their pasts. Rita needs to work through her difficult relationship with her mother. Lily needs to deal with her past trauma and guilt. After the Bloom is about the things we do to survive and the things we do to live with ourselves. Do lies for the greater good actually benefit anyone or does it just extend the pain? Many of the characters try to forget the past to protect themselves and those around them. Is it better to forget or does remembering make us whole? No matter how much we might want to forget, the past can never be truly buried. The effects of the past reverberate through generations, whether we recognize it or not.

LINKS
• Book Trailer
• Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment - Photographs play a key role in the story. Photos can show what actually happened, but they can also be used to show what we want to see. Documentary photographer Dorothea Lange's photos of the internment camps were confiscated by the U.S. military and hidden away in the National Archives until 2006.
• Manazar Riot/Uprising - The Matanzas Riot is loosely based on the 1942 Manazar Riot.
• Driven Underground Years Ago, Japan's 'Hidden Christians' Maintain Faith - History is filled with people deemed as undesirable by their fellow citizens. Rita notices how Lily seems to shield herself with bigotry. It's a reminder that these are not just isolated instances in history and that it's important to look inside ourselves.
• The Redress Movement- A campaign to obtain restitution and an apology for the internment of Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians during World War II.
• The theme of collective amnesia reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant:

"I know my god looks uneasily on our deeds of that day. Yet it’s long past and the bones lie sheltered beneath a pleasant green carpet. The young know nothing of them. ... Be merciful and leave this place. Leave this country to rest in forgetfulness.”

“Foolishness, sir. How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly? Or a peace hold for ever built on slaughter and a magician’s trickery? I see how devoutly you wish it, for your old horrors to crumble as dust. Yet they await in the soil as white bones for men to uncover."

_________________
I received this book for free from Netgalley and Dundurn. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. It's available now!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of historical fiction tells a tale of incredible sadness. Lives were ruined by the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII. The author has two narrators, Rita and her mother Lily. Lily's narrative is told in flashbacks to the internment camp. Lily confronts her past and achieves a measure of redemption. Rita learns about a past that she never knew.
Definitely a 4 star book.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me this book..

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name]

Big thanks to Leslie Shimotakahara, Dundurn Publishing, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

Probably more of a strong 3.5 stars likeable characters and believable relationships

Not much attention is paid to the horrific time in history during WWII when the North American governments decided to intern Japanese Americans due to fears of espionage. Shimotakahara found inspiration in her family history to write After the Bloom, a story about a daughter's despondency over her mother's tortured memories. Lily, Rita's mother, disappears, which leads Rita on a wild goose chase from Toronto to California. Not only does she desire to find her mother but she also discovers the repressed memories of her older family members. These recollections are so distressing to Lily that they have led to a life of complete confusion.
What I found most worrisome in the plot is Lily's relationships with the men in her life. Every man is either abusive or exploitive. There is no healthy relationship. No wonder she's delusional. "You've had a good life, haven't you?", she asks Rita. How can she answer?

[Pallavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

*****3.0*****

Leslie Shimotakahara’s debut novel gives the reader an insight to Japanese culture, along with the forceful internment of Japanese Americans across America during WWII, which I was not aware at all.

The narration jumps between Daughter Rita Takemitsu and her Mother Lily, giving a full view on plot, while mother and daughter being ignorant on what actually happened/happening in each other’s life. Lily has wandered off again, like always and no one knows where to find her when she doesn’t return. Rita is scared and wants to find her mother. She follows with different acquaintances of her mother, who were complete strangers to her and digs up the story of her mother’s internment and the trauma, instability and family issues which she went through. Rita is finally able to find her mother and reunite with a lighter heart.

Along with Rita’s story, Lily’s story is also put forward which happened to be set in internment camp during WWII. The events were relatively light from other WWII books that I have read, but trauma/abuse doesn’t have a measure. Trauma/Abuse is what it is, no more, no less.

I personally am a little disappointed in the way the story was narrated. The after effect was a little less than I thought I would have. Good plot, variety of characters/setting but narration not up to the mark!

Happy Reading!!

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 3 out of 5]

via my blog https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
“Everyone, perhaps, had these faint, staticky shadow selves following them around, like degraded clones. Yourself, but not yourself. Things you’d done, but couldn’t believe you’d done, would never acknowledge. Parts of yourself you couldn’t bear to own.”

It is summer in 1980s Toronto when Lily Takemitsu vanishes. Her daughter Rita is familar with her mother’s wanderings but never have her absences lasted this long. When she decides to find out what happened to her mother, as the police aren’t taking it seriously, she ends up excavating her family’s secrets from their time spent interned at a Camp in California during World War II. Her father is an unknown, a question mark that forever hovers over her life, a wide gap. Her mother never seems to tell things straight and certainly glosses over any memories of the internment camp. It isn’t long before Rita begins to understand why her mother wants to forget and how her mind has lasting damage.

The story follows Lily from past to present, at a tender age she falls stupidly in love as any 18 year old might. Normally the consequences aren’t as dire for the rest of us, we get burned in young love and move on. But blindly loving a ‘bad seed’ during dangerous times when your own country has imprisoned you can set a young woman on a path of destruction. Guilt is a rotten shadow to follow you the rest of your life. It touches Rita long after her mother has left the camp, poisoning her mother’s future. It’s hard to understand for those of us that have never lived through these experiences. It’s interesting to me that children today don’t even realize Japanese Americans were sent to camps, that they lost businesses, homes… it isn’t often something shouted from a mountaintop in the way other unconscionable events in history are. Much of that reason is Japanese culture itself, which I learned so much more about living in Okinawa for 3 years. They don’t spend much time complaining, it isn’t done in their culture, but don’t forget they were denied basic rights, rounded up and sent to live in military style barracks. Imagine that today, regardless of where you come from, you are an American citizen and you are taken from your community, your home, losing your successful businesses or careers all because you are the ethnicity that is now the enemy. Much of what I learned was outside of school, I remember this moment in history was glossed over during my early years. The paranoia remains, people still afraid to speak about reparations, because you never know when the tide will turn and again someone will be out to get you.

In After The Bloom, Rita starts to understand why her mother doesn’t seem to fully function. Full of shame from that time, actions taken in her fiery youth, her heart’s confusion she keeps so much of herself hidden. Denial has become her coping mechanism, but the gaps in her mind will out all the trauma of her past. That Lily’s new husband doesn’t really know Lily, or that she was once interned at a camp in the USA speaks volumes of her denial. She hasn’t been the best mother, but in closing herself off has been her way of existing sadly it has clouded Rita’s own mothering skills. War is a beast, not just for those fighting battles but for generations long after it’s end. For some it is a silence, a gaping hole in the family’s history. There is a zone in families where no questions are asked, but much like a ghost there is a looming presence that pulsates with all things unsaid. Deep down, you know there is something huge missing but you don’t know what it is, it’s simply felt in the silence.

Rita was in the dark ‘not knowing’ as much as her mother was in the dark full of knowledge. That Lily disconnected from her truth may well be the reason her memory is flawed. Don’t come into this novel expecting happily ever after where ‘EUREKA’ now everything is out and mommy is fixed. When Rita’s father becomes a person with each uncovering, what does it change for Rita? What does understanding finally mean for the absence in her life? Lily’s life is heartbreaking, we can only understand such an existence on the periphery and it’s the same for her daughter. But I dare anyone to think they would make wiser decisions in Lily’s shoes. What I always try to do when reading novels of this sort is imagine myself at 18, in the same situation older now I realize it’s easy to speak from wisdom but at 18 with that dreamy naivete I imagine I’d be just a stupid with love, blinded and trusting in the wrong things.

Lily’s family is a dysfunctional mess before everything that comes to pass, and it is disturbing. This is a sad tale that is about more than just transgressions against Japanese Americans, it is also about how we wrong our families, and ourselves with consequences that can last for generations.

Publication Date: May 9, 2017

Dundurn

[Nadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the Bloom is a story about family, history, and love. Readers follow the main character, Rita, as she discovers her parents' past in an interment camp in California. Rita has always been ignorant of her mother's time at the camp. She never pushed or sought out more information. So, when her mother goes missing she's forced to realize that the way her mother acts is a result of what happened to her in the past.

The pace of the first 100 pages is incredible slow. I had a really hard time investing in the characters and the story. There were even a few times I almost fell asleep. However, once the story and characters are grounded, the pace evens out and I found myself truly invested in the outcome of these characters.

The narrative oscillates between the past and the present and between Rita and her mother’s perspective. The past chapters inform the reader about the questions being asked in the present chapters. So, for most of the novel the reader is privy to more information than the main character. I thoroughly enjoyed this writing decision because it allows readers to make connections on their own without the author having to spell it out plainly.

One of the aspects of this book I did not enjoy was the author's choice of creating a fictionalized camp based on a real one. Shimotakahara even goes so far as just changing a few letters in the name of the real camp to create the fictionalized version of it. I, personally, feel like the story would have been more impactful had the author chosen to base her fictional story in the actual camp.

Overall, After the Bloom is about an event not often talked about, but should be widely known. It provides an interesting look at how the interment camps greatly affected the people at the time as well as their lives after being released.

*I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Kati Berman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The premise of the book, how the Japanese were interned during WWII interested me, as I didn't know too much about this part of American history. I found Lily's story during the war confusing and very hard to follow. Rita's story looking for her mother was somewhat easier to follow, but it still left many questions in my mind. I found the conclusion of the book very strange and the coincidences too unbelievable also. Overall, I struggled through the novel, as I don't easily give up once I start it. This book was a disappointment for me, do not recommend.
Thanks NetGalley , the publisher and the author Leslie Shimotakara for the advanced copy.

[Nissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was absolutely in love with this book! I didn't want this book to end. I wanted it to go on forever and ever. I was connected to these characters in a way I've never felt before, and I didn't want to leave them. Great book! I would highly recommend this book to anyone. I won a copy of this book from the publisher Dundurn Press.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars Well I fairly ripped through this one didn't I? Once I started reading, I just had to find out what happened to Lily, and why Rita's mom disappeared. After the Bloom is part mystery (due to figuring out where Lily disappeared to) and of Rita's coming to terms with the state of her family, the nagging mystery about her father and her mother's lifelong distraction and denial about being interned in California during WWII. A very good read, and one I read in just a few sittings.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rita is a Canadian of Japanese ancestry, her parents were interned at a fictionalized camp called Matanzas and now the mother, Lily, is missing. The generation-spanning mystery involves psychology which is vague yet intriguing. In a misery-loving-company sense, I "liked" learning that Canada shares America's guilt in having imprisoned its Japanese citizens also, in reaction to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Along the same lines, it was interesting reading such a negative perception of the role of the Japanese American Citizens League, which I'd always considered to be the good guys. So I guess I would say I found the book to be revealing, although unsettling.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback. I've read Farewell to Manzanar before, which is a book that's also about the Japanese internment camps. This plot of these two stories are quite different: Farewell to Manzanar's plot happens in real time whereas After the Bloom takes place years after the camps. However, it is because the story contains so many episodes of flashbacks that make lily's memories and flashback stories difficult to follow. I find myself being confused and needing to re-read certain passages in order to understand the plot or to connect one even to another. Although Rita's search for her mother was an easier storyline to follow, I still found myself either being confused or having questions as I read the story.
This novel certainly introduces the struggles and post-traumatic stress caused by the Japanese internment camps, while also discussing Asian Americans/Asian Canadians journey to learning about their own culture and their family history, which are so often neglected. Due to the plotline being hard to follow, it takes away the flow of the story. Although I'm pleasantly surprised that this isn't just another story like Farewell to Manzanar, I wished its plot was easier to follow.

[Lynette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a really hard time focusing on this book. I kept thinking I'd skipped something, but upon going back and rereading, I hadn't.

[Diane Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not that this novel is good or bad, it's that when I reached the ending, I felt something was missing. The premise of the novel is a daughter searching for her missing elderly mother, and along the way, she meets a professor and gets good sex while on this quest. Readers get a fair amount of info about the mother as a young woman in an interment camp, but we don't get much info about the mother and her daughter at any point in their lives. We know more about the daughter and her professor's relationship, which happens quickly in a short amount of time, than we know about the relationship between any mother and daughter in this book. The book wraps up quickly when the mother is discovered in a Lifetime movie fashion. I'm wondering what would have happened if some of the historical parts of the novel were shortened and the story picked up the pace after the mother is discovered and the daughter finally knows something about her mother's history. Oh well. That will be another novel.

[Nancy Graben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting novel. I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in historical fiction.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 and ½ stars

Rita’s mother, Lily, has gone missing. This is not the first time she has disappeared, but it is the longest she’s been gone. Rita’s brother, Tom, shows up later and gets into the act. Lily’s husband has only been married to her for a year, so he wasn’t aware of the “missing” parts of Lily’s life.

One of the missing parts is a concentration camp during WWII when all of the Japanese people were interned. Lily flatly denies ever having been there.

(As an aside here, the pantyhose described in the 13% of the book did not exist during the war. Oops.)

After a horrible childhood, the book tells Lily’s story from the mid - 1980’s during her internment camp days. Interred at about 18 years old, Lily is already setting herself up for the denial of the whole experience. While in the camp, Lily meets Kaz. She is a naïve young woman and quickly begins to set up a fantasy life for herself. She sadly deludes herself by believing her own version of reality. She begins to have memory lapses.

The story moves back and forth between Lily and Rita. Rita, beset by doubts about her fitness as a mother and all the time Lily is missing learning more about her mother that she didn’t know. She finds out stunning things.

What touched me particularly was when Ms. Shimotakahara talked about Lily being unable to throw anything away or would stoop to gather a flower in someone’s overgrown yard. My mother-in-law lived through Nagasaki before she married my American GI father-in-law and moved to the United States. Ms. Shimotakahara’s words describe Tomoko to the letter. While she has passed away now, I am grateful for the memory and sad smile Ms. Shimotakahara brought to me.

This is a remarkable book, both touching and suspenseful. Well written, well researched; it is a tour de force in literature.

I want to thank Netgalley and Dundurn for forwarding me a copy of this wonderful book to read.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mark of a good book is that it makes the reader want to learn more. I admit I googled while reading this book to learn more about the Japanese internment. Were we even taught anything about it in school? Granted I rode to school on a dinosaur and I can’t remember a thing, but I’m pretty sure this sad piece of US history was not often discussed.

I wouldn’t say the family in this story is dysfunctional, but they certainly are flawed. Lily, the mom, went through a horrible experience at the internment camp and didn’t come away from it in one piece. How did she even manage to raise two functional children? Her son is somewhat emotionless. Her daughter, Rita, who is a lot like her (though she would disagree), is trying to raise her own daughter after an unhappy marriage. The story does not tie up all loose ends in a nice neat bow, but having a few questions left unanswered makes it more credible.

I did enjoy the story of Lilly in this book much more than the story of her daughter’s struggles to find her. Rita’s behavior seemed a little erratic and I was annoyed that she couldn’t just pull herself together. This is not a problem with the book nor is it unrealistic--her mother did just disappear which gives anyone reason to lose it a little.

It may be just my perception, but it seemed liked the last half of the book was better written than the first. It was less disjointed and seemed to find its voice. The first part did have some major formatting problems in my kindle version which were a huge distraction, hopefully they will be fixed before it is released.

Congratulations Leslie Shimotakahara on your great debut novel. I look forward to reading more of your work. Thank you NetGalley and Dundurn Press for providing a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

My mother is 88 years old. When asked about what happened in the 1940s, she is a very unreliable narrative. When she writes out her memoirs, they are not right, out of order, and make no sense. But that is my mother. I have no control over how I write her story, as this is real life.

Lily, the mother in this book, who was interred in a camp set up for people of Japanese decent during WWII tells half of the story of this book, and her daughter tells the other half. The daughter, Rita, is telling the story in the 1980s. And Lily is telling it in the 1940s. Reading Lily's side of the story of her time in the camp is like having to watch paint dry, but not being able to look at the paint. It is very slow and painful and you can't quite figure out what is really going on, or if you can, you want Lily to notice so you can move on.

There are some good points made in this novel, which is why it is a three instead of two star. The point about how those who have been forced to leave everything to go off to camp, or have to escape their homeland, will forever after fear it is going to happen again. They do not trust the present government not to do so again. And they probably are right not to.

It is not a YA, NA or middle school book. This is what is often called Literary fiction. It is a little slower than I am used to, since I tend to gobble up Middle School and YA, and a bit longer. It is good for pointing out what wrongs happen to people when the government does things that it shouldn't to people it shouldn't. But, if you are used to the faster paced YA and Middle School, I would steer away from this.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from Dundurn Press as an automatically approved NetGalley feed. Sadly, for me a 2.5. Rounding up only because the writing was decent.

I was looking forward to this read but was very disappointed. The blurb was enticing. I have read a few other book on the Japanese internment [most recently the superior Requiem, by Frances Itani, which takes place in camps in Canada; in this book, the camps are in California]. And the extremely compelling Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.

But this book was disjointed and all over the place. It never grabbed me. The writing was good enough. The only time I felt jarred by the prose was the description of moments between Rita and Mark late in the book--when they were not involved in looking for Lily, or doing research. Then it felt very much out of sync--I wondered what?! Is this the same author? Why is it even in this book--not necessary [at least it felt that way to me].

The book jumped around too much and left bits unsatisfied. When the story was in the camp it was more fulfilling. But too much of a mishmash. Beauty pageants? Leave it out. Family history-- parts dangled too long -- sort of kept me guessing, filling in the blanks, but I just didnt care.

So good because not awful.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many thanks to Dundurn Press for allowing me to read an advanced copy of After the Bloom in exchange for an unbiased review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I've read many books from the World War II era, but this is the first about internment camps. I knew these camps existed but hadn't learned much about them or given much thought to what they were like. I appreciated the author's portrayal of life there, especially from the vantage point of a young woman who'd experienced a relatively normal life prior to being interned.

As a daughter and a mother, I also thought the mother/daughter relationship was portrayed well. I do wish we'd gotten more insight into the mother's (Lily 's) perspective of her relationship with her daughter (Rita), but the daughter's eventual understanding of her mother and what she'd gone through was executed with grace, insight, and authenticity.

Well done Ms. Shimotakahara - a page turning novel that was entertaining and educational.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alternating between the mid 1980's Canada and a Japanese internment camp in the US during World War II, the novel tells the story of Lily and her daughter, Rita. Rita didn't know about her mother's internment, and how the impact of that experience caused much of her mother's disassociation. Lily goes missing, and in the search for her, Rita uncovers both her mother's past and the key to her own u happy upbringing. The Kindle version of this galley was difficult to read, and there were transitions within chapters that didn't make sense. Needs further editing but an interesting story.

[Rachel Yuska · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love Asian historical fiction with sad ending, and this book fulfills my craving.
The author portrays two different eras seamlessly. This book hit me hard and deep.

I also love how the author crafts her words beautifully. Since I don't mind books with incredible sadness, I would love to read Shimotakahara's book in the future.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Librarian perk - picked up a signed Advance Reading Copy from the Ontario Library Association Super Conference. I have a feeling this might be a good book club pick.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this novel a bit hard to follow at times. The novel seemed jumpy and the flow wasn’t consistent for me. I think the subject matter and the story itself was interesting but the way it was delivered, did not work for me.

In the past, Rita’s mother Lily, has disappeared for a few days but eventually she returns to her family and life continues. This time, Lily’s disappearance has Rita concerned. With her elderly mother gone, Rita contacts the police but they believe that Lily will eventually return like she always does. Rita decides to do her own investigating to see if she can locate her mother. What she soon finds out is that her mother was not only going to her Nisei Women’s Group but she started to attend another closed-group meeting, a group that Rita knew nothing about. When her mother talks about her past, she mentions camps but these conversations were short and without much detail. No one talked about these camps and the conversation was dropped. Now, Rita wants to know more about these camps but who is she going to get her information from? Able to locate the date and time of the next closed-group meeting, Rita hears the words redress and internment and she can’t possibly believe that her mother is associated with these individuals. Rita is slowly uncovering a part of her own history and finding her mother in the process.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Dundurn in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for sharing this novel with me.

[Kelsi H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please read all of my reviews at http://ultraviolentlit.blogspot.ca!

Rita Takemitsu is a recently divorced mother, living in Toronto in the mid-1980s. Her daughter is spending the summer with her father in Vancouver, and Rita has the summer off from teaching school, so she is free to wallow in the self-pity she is feeling about the direction her life has taken. That is, until she finds out that her mother Lily has gone missing – and the police aren’t taking the case seriously.

Lily has a history of memory issues and mental breakdowns, which Rita struggled with throughout her childhood. Rita was raised by her grandfather after her father left them, but Lily often confused the two men with each other. When Rita meets with Lily’s newest husband to report her disappearance, she discovers that he knows very little about her past. With little help from the police, and a stepfather that has given up on Lily, Rita decides to start investigating on her own.

Rita finds out that Lily had been attending the meetings of a group that sought reparations for the Japanese internment during World War II – she had been interned in a camp in California when she was eighteen years old. A professor whose father was also interned is helping with the cause, and he and Rita begin working together to track down Lily. The two of them end up getting involved in a very normal, realistic relationship that was one of the highlights of the novel. Although the book moves through history – from Lily’s time at the camp to Rita’s summer in Toronto – I found that the characters in Rita’s section were much more fleshed out and believable.

The mystery of Lily’s disappearance is offset by the literary and historical elements of Lily’s past and Rita’s family drama, especially as she attempts to reconcile her mother to the person she once was. There is also the mystery of who Rita’s father really was – Lily claims that it was Kaz, a man she met at the camp, but as Rita gathers information about her mother, she also learns that her father may have been someone very different. Lily fell in love with Kaz despite the flaws and warning signs, and she seemed to be trying to convince everyone, including herself, that he loved her. Lily lies constantly about her past, but it is not always intentional, as even she does not seem to remember the truth through her confusion.

This novel explores a horrific period of our history (and Canada is included here too) that is often glossed over and ignored. People at the time thought that the interned Japanese were being treated even better than the general public, when in fact they were herded into army barracks and fed just enough to survive. More importantly, their homes, businesses and civil rights were taken from them. Although the sections set in the camp were more historically interesting, I found the modern characters more compelling. Their reconciliation of their parents’ pasts was emotional and intriguing, and a subject that is relevant to all of us today.

I received this book from Dundurn Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dundurn and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of After The Bloom. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

60 year old Lily Takemitsu goes missing from her home in Toronto, leaving her daughter Rita to search for her after the police do not seem to take the disappearance seriously. With a history of memory issues, Rita is worried that her mother is wandering around, lost and confused. Her new husband has no knowledge of any issues, nor does her son, putting the burden on Rita to deal with it all. As Rita searches, she ends up delving into the family's secrets, confronting all that took place when her mom was held in a displaced person's camp in California during World War II.

After The Bloom had promise, but there were issues that took away from the story as a whole. The author jumps between Lily in the past and Rita in the present, but often does not delineate between the two. Many times, a sentence or two can go by before the reader is told who is speaking. The descriptions of the problems in the internment camps are on point, but this was not enough to elevate the book. Too much time is spent on Rita's current issues, especially the ones that have no bearing on her missing mother. Additionally, Lily's mental state, both past and present, is not fully explored or explained, leaving readers to fill in the missing details. For these reasons, I would be hesitant to recommend After The Bloom to other readers.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

When her mother, Lily, disappears, Rita begins to delve into her past and learns that things weren’t as she always thought they were. The story moved slowly and bounced back in forth between Rita in the present and Lily in the past. The shifts between the two weren’t always easily discernible and many times I had to read well into a paragraph to realize which timeline the story was in. On top of that, frequently I felt that I was finally getting somewhere in a timeline and then the narrative would switch back. I realize this is normal for a book with multiple time lines but combined with the slow pace of the book it became frustrating. I also did not understand some of the characters’ actions. Specifically, Rita begins a sexual relationship with one of the people she meets while trying to uncover where her mother went. It was fast and felt out of place in the book. I also felt that Ms. Shimotakahara did a disservice to the internment centers. Why make up a fictional one? She did the research to learn what conditions were like. The riot she includes actually took place at Manzanar. Why not reference that one? I think I was hoping for a more personal look at what took place at the concentration camps, even as fiction, as was let down.

A copy of this book was provided by NetGalley and Dundurn in exchange for an honest review.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

When Lily Takemitsu goes missing from her home in 1980s, her daughter, Rita, doesn’t think too much of it. Lily has had a problem of disappearing since her internment during World War II 40 years ago. However, when Lily doesn’t show up after a few hours, as she always has in the past, Rita begins to worry. Rita doesn’t get the help she expects from the police, and Rita’s own search leads her to explore the unanswered questions she has always had about her mom’s time at the Japanese internment camp.

The story jumps back and forth between Rita in the 1980s and Lily in the 1940s. I would have liked to have seen more of what happened in the internment camp. Lily was obviously suffering from some sort of PTSD or mental breakdown because of her experiences in the camp, which made it feel like we only saw a small piece of what went on in there. The novel covered topics that need to be discussed, but the story never really grabbed me.

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rita Takemitsu’s mother, Lily, is missing and this is the worst possible time. Rita is newly divorced and has moved into a new apartment, for that matter, she’s not even unpacked. Her daughter, Kristen, is staying in Vancouver with her father, who appears to have moved on more quickly from the divorce than Rita so Kristen’s phone calls add to her misery. Her brother Tom isn’t taking the disappearance seriously and Lily’s new husband, Gerald, is slowly falling apart as he learns his wife isn’t who he thought she was.

That’s the background for Leslie Shimotakahara’s novel, After the Bloom, but it’s not the real story. The real story and what’s far more interesting is what happened to Lily and the Japanese-Americans in 1943 in the Matanzas internment camp. Matanzas is based on a real-life camp, Manzanar, one of ten camps in the United Stated where Japanese-Americans were incarcerated during WWII and the site of the real-life Manzanar Riot (portrayed quite vividly in the novel as the Matanzas Riot).

The author uses the present, 1980’s Toronto and Lily’s disappearance, to lead us back into the past and educate us (or at least, me) into the nature of the camps. How a woman who suffers from occasional fugue states is able to travel a great distance to achieve a goal is a bit of mystery and often Rita’s neediness grates, but ultimately After the Bloom is an engrossing read, a sad yet important reminder of a period in American history, and I would recommend the book.

[Mona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shimotakahara writes with refined sensitivity about the fragility of human nature, and how such vulnerability can transform into strength in the name of love. Her characters are flawed with human weaknesses. They come across as real: they feel, they think and they act. They draw the readers into their worlds, sharing their anguish and pains.
Both the downtown Toronto and the desert camp landscape are depicted vividly, filtered by Shimotakahara’s keen observation, vivid imagination and strong narrative. The fictional name of Matanzas camp bears close resemblance to the actual Manzanar camp, where a riot took place, as in the novel. Credit must be given to her artful blend of research material and personal experience.
(The complete version of this review will appear in the September issue of Ottawa Review of Books.)