Two Nails, One Love

by Alden M. Hayashi

Two Nails, One Love opens in New York City with the narrator-Ethan Taniguchi, a Japanese-American gay man in his early forties-awaiting the arrival of his mother from Hawaii. The two have been estranged for more than a decade, and the reunion is fraught with past grievances bubbling to the surface. After a fateful ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty, Ethan's mother reluctantly reveals details of her shattered childhood-her family's imprisonment in a concentration camp in Arkansas in World War II, followed by a deportation to Japan, where she witnesses the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Ethan's past is also revealed-painful memories of a forsaken career in music and a delayed coming out at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Eventually, both mother and son come to understand the complex and subtle ways that their lives are intertwined, with the past reverberating powerfully through the present.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Contemporary, Historical Fiction

194 pages, Paperback

Published September 16, 2021

About the author

Alden M. Hayashi has been an editor and writer at Scientific American, the Harvard Business Review, and the MIT Sloan Management Review. After more than thirty years covering science, technology, and business, he has recently delved into writing fiction. Two Nails, One Love is his first novel. For more information, please visit www.aldenmhayashi.com.

Reviews

[PaperMoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this expose on a middle aged gay man's relationship with his mother resonated with me. I too experienced racial and cultural transplant difficulties within a largely Anglo culture society (back in the 1970s). The plot has familiar echoes of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song third act but travels back and forth in historical timelines to explore what traumatic experiences might be motivating / driving a strong-willed, protective and controlling mother. I was quite moved in parts. 4.5 stars.

[CarolineFromConcord · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there is such a thing as gentle fierceness, then gentle fierceness is the quality that makes the estranged mother and son of this novel more alike than they realize.

The mother was sent as a child to an Arkansas concentration camp (people used to say "internment camp") and was only 7 when her family was among a boatload of Japanese Americans exchanged for mostly Caucasian Americans caught in wartime Asia. The Japanese Americans were sent to what they regarded as the enemy country.

The woman's parents may have been from Japan originally, but they were US citizens, and she herself was born in Hawaii. When she was allowed back after WW II, she was told that in going to Japan during a war, she had renounced her citizenship. The US State Department suggested she come in as a resident alien. She was about to marry an American citizen and could have gotten citizenship through him.

But although only 17 and normally obedient (not a nail to stick up), she told the State Department firmly that she had not renounced her citizenship at age 7 to go to a foreign country she'd never seen.

This anecdote comes from the life of the novelist's mother, and in the course of a book dealing with the gay protagonist's estrangement from a woman who seemed to him obsessed with traditional proprieties and with not sticking her neck out, we learn that he also is the type to stand up for what is right -- losing work as a musician because he wouldn't pretend some business shenanigans were OK.

I'm pulling out this aspect of the story because I know the author -- a gentle gentleman who once quit a job at a prestigious magazine where the chief editor was engaging in unethical editorial practices.

After not seeing each other for ten years and communicating rarely, the mother decides to leave Hawaii to visit her son in New York. A trip to the Statue of Liberty and the painful memory of her family watching it recede in the distance as they were shipped away from their real home leads to a moment of opening up. Little by little her son begins to extract stories his mother never discussed, and in the process, he begins to see her -- and even to see himself -- in a new light.

There's a lot here about memory, about how members of the same family can remember things so differently but simultaneously feel there are ties between them that keep deepening.

Could be a good choice for your book group.

[Costas · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many themes to explore in "Two Nails, One Love." My favorite is the troubled relationship that the mother and son have, all because of the secrets and expectations they have for each other. Additionally, the story is so relevant in today's world with the anti-Asian sentiment that we have been seeing recently. Hope this story will bring light to past injustices so they are never repeated to ANY American citizen.

[Karen Lowhurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Japanese American, it was my first experience reading literature that touches on some of our culture’s most poignant themes: parental pressure, conformity, the Model Minority myth, to name a few. Protagonist Ethan’s story unfolds authentically as the reader grows to love and root for him. Hayashi will emerge as the voice of the generation, especially for those who strive to both succeed and evolve into they true selves.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sweet little historical fiction story about a gay Japanese American man reconnecting with his mother as she grapples with her past as someone who was forced into an interment camp and then deported to Japan during the Second World War.

[Len · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet, moving, touching and hopeful.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It took me a little while to get into it, but when I did, I really did! I enjoyed learning about Japanese American history and culture, which is part of my heritage I don't know much about. I especially enjoyed the exploration of the relationships between the main character and the important people in his life.

[Misty · Rating 4 out of 5]

** 4.5 Stars **

[Shirley Kamada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ethan Taniguchi strove for mastery of the oboe as if it were his life’s singular purpose. He felt at one with the instrument. But to bring honor to his family and fulfill his parents’ dreams, he must enter a profession—as an engineer, a doctor, or a lawyer, not as a musician—even as he faces their disapproval around his sexuality. Meanwhile, out in the world, “the AIDS epidemic raised homophobia to a whole new level of fear and hate.”

Deeply saddened by his father’s death, Ethan waivers between ignoring and seeking resolution of the rift between himself and his widowed mother, who—as he learns—is tormented by historic injustices from her childhood, among them, the family’s WWII relocation from Hawaii to an Arkansas internment camp and, afterward, deportation to Japan where his mother, still a young girl, was treated as an outcast. Born in Hawaii, she had not been to Japan before the war, nor did she speak the language. Yet she and her family were in Iwakuni when the atomic bomb was dropped on nearby Hiroshima.

Alden M. Hayashi’s novel, TWO NAILS, ONE LOVE, explores several often-overlooked facts of WWII history. While the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans living in Hawaii was less common, one percent of those with Japanese ancestry were detained and held in camps. The unwarranted and unwanted deportation of families for use in brokering a “hostage” trade with Imperial Japan is seldom noted. On August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped, 11,000 people born in Hawaii or the United States were in Hiroshima.

Every reader will find relatable elements in this carefully researched book. Alden M. Hayashi excavates the strata of a life impacted by grave injustices and gives focus to the nature of generational trauma. Never subsiding to pathos, always pursuing understanding, TWO NAILS, ONE LOVE appeals to the intellect, but above all, it is a compelling and deeply felt story.

[BosGuy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two Nails, One Love by Alden Hayashi is a quick and thoroughly enjoyable read about a gay Japanese-American man and his complicated relationship with his mother.

Hayashi’s novel opens with the main character, Ethan (or Ken-chan as his mother calls him), at Newark Airport nervously awaiting his mother’s arrival from Hawaii. Born and raised in the tropical paradise of Hawaii, Ethan now lives in New York City, and this is his mother’s first visit to the East Coast. While he waits for her plane to land, he replays the last time they were together. The harsh words spoken and hurt feelings that erupted, while planning the funeral of Ken-chan’s father, fill him with anxiety.

As you read the story you can’t help but marvel at the most extraordinary life Ethan’s mother lived as a child of priviledge in Honolulu’s Japanese American community, she was subjected to unimaginable difficulty following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and outbreak of WWII. While the mother-son relationship is complicated the novel is most definitely not, and I found myself staying up late reading well past my bedtime caught up in this relationship told from the perspective of a dutiful and somewhat rebellious son. I highly recommend getting yourself a copy of Hayashi’s debut novel.

Read the full review here: https://bosguy.com/2021/10/06/book-re...

[Kimiko Guthrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two Nails, One Love is a starkly stunning novel about a man struggling to come to terms with himself and his family's past. Hayashi's prose are elegant and immediate, bringing us right to the heart of his characters' experience - several times I found myself suddenly in tears. His portrayal of the main character and his mother, and especially of their strained, complex relationship, is nuanced and at times breathtaking in its realistic feel and poignancy. As a sansei myself, whose family also went through the WWII Japanese American incarceration camps, I learned so much I didn't know - and I've spent years researching the subject. I really couldn't stop reading once I started. I look forward to reading anything else Hayashi writes!

[Nanako Water · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a unique story of a gay Japanese American man's search for answers. Like many Japanese Americans, Hayashi was puzzled by his parents and their secrecy. When he finally learned the horrifying truth of his mother's childhood, he wrote this novel to bring life to her story. The story is told through Ken, the only son of middle class Japanese-Americans who live in beautiful Hawaii. Ken struggles to define his future career and his love life despite his parents' disapproval. Often in real life, by the time we realize the sacrifices our parents made for us, it is too late. Hayashi 's story gives us the satisfaction of seeing what happens when Ken does finally make that connection with his mother and they are both able to accept and understand each other.

[Agnes Terao-Guiala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Alden Hayashi's first novel is a well-researched historical fiction coming-of-age story about a young Japanese-American man's search for his identity as he tries to honor and adapt to his parents' wishes about his future profession and life as an adult. A sub-plot tells of the experiences of the Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated during World War II and reveals how this experience negatively impacted many JAs and their families, changing the lives and futures of the internees forever.
Some famous Japanese proverbs/sayings are included in the text as part of the story hence the beautiful title of this book!

[Mits · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written very simply in straight-forward prose. This made it a very quick read, but I learned a lot about the experiences of Japanese-Americans who were deported during WWII, a perspective I had not learned about before. It was also interesting to hear about people in Hawaii and their experiences with incarceration, since I was previously under the impression that they were not relocated. I also enjoyed the main character's personal journey with his career in music, his relationship with Lucas, and with his mother. I'm looking forward to meeting the author and hearing him speak soon.

[Carlos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hayashi writes a straight forward story of the difficult relationship between a gay man and his mother, both Japanese Americans. He weaves the real life story of the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII into the mother’s backstory. The book plays a lot on the clash of community-based Eastern notions of identity and individualistic Western notions. The novel suffers from being a bit two-dimensional, never allowing the reader to sink into the story and instead offering continuous exposition.

[Mary McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this intimate family tale. At it's heart is a story of love- a son's love for his mom and his struggles to reconnect with her, but also a love for himself and his choices in life. Along the way, we as readers also learn some difficult American history. History experienced by this family and many other Japanese-American families, but little known by the greater American population. I highly recommend this book.

[Evil Queen Sf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a masterful combination of historical fiction, Japanese internment, a heartwarming mother-son relationship, and an LGBT+ coming-of-age story. The author weaves together various themes of self-acceptance, personal growth, and forgiveness of the past, creating a beautiful and poignant narrative. The story explores numerous subjects, making it an incredibly engaging and multifaceted read.

[Leilani Hastings · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic read for anyone. As a Japanese American I found I could relate in so many ways to this book, even though I’m from a younger generation than the protagonist. I love how the author keeps facts as fact, and yet still the story has so much heart. It’s not often I learn about my own family history/heritage through someone else’s story.

[Bobbi Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful, educational and enlightening

This book brings to light what many may not know about the plight of Japanese - Americans during WWII. More explicitly, how they were treated and some sent to Japan where many had never been or lived before. It's a story about family, emotions and love. The thing that ties family together no matter what happens.

[Cymiki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a different shade of internment, told from the point of view of a son who is estranged from his mom. The son feels he has never been supported and also struggles with his sexuality. The mom's story starts with growing up in Hawaii, internment in Arkansas before being deported to Japan during the war.

[Kemlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reads like a good first novel. The nuances of the mother-son relationship, the historical context, and the insights into Hawaiian culture appealed to me. I also learned a few things I hadn’t known about the treatment of Japanese Americans during and after WWII.

[Dori Daus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done!

I really enjoyed this book. The parallels of racism were delicately but clearly stated. The historical fiction was relatable and rang as truth.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was captivating. It was interesting to read of the Japanese-American experience during WWII, as well as the dynamics of what it means to be Japanese-American in today's culture.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really touching fictionalization of Hayashis life.

[Clark Fujihara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read!!

[Ian Martyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a gay, half-Japanese American musician, I had this book recommended to me by quite a few different people. I was definitely not disappointed, and I found many parallels with my own life here.

I really appreciated Hayashi's frank discussion of both Ethan's own experiences and the experiences of his mother, both of which echoed real-life happenings for Japanese-American people. It's always interesting to hear about how the experience for different Japanese-American people differed depending on circumstances that were basically out of their control, and Hayashi brings yet another perspective to the table here. I also really appreciate Hayashi's commentary not only on growing up as a gay man but also on making it as a professional musician.

Seeing so many of my different identities come together in a book was a really neat experience for lack of a better word, and I hope that Hayashi writes more books that end up exploring the intersection of these identities.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful and fascinating story with an excellent historical account of the internment of Japanese Americans in the Second World War. I couldn’t put it down!