Camp Nine: A Novel
by Vivienne Schiffer
Chess Morton lives in tiny Rook, Arkansas. Her days are
quiet and secluded until the appearance of a relocation center built for the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans. Chess’s life becomes intertwined with those of two young internees and that of an American soldier mysteriously connected to her mother’s past. As Chess watches the struggles and triumphs of these strangers and sees her mother seek justice for these people who came briefly and involuntarily to call the Arkansas Delta their home, she discovers surprising and disturbing truths about her family’s painful past.
Reviews:
"A compelling, vivid account of a shameful episode that should not be forgotten."
--Booklist (starred review)
"Through the prisms of place, family, race, class, power, and privilege, Vivienne Schiffer skillfully constructs a necessarily complicated portrait of the era into a meaningful mosaic and satisfying story."
--Grif Stockley, author of Ruled by Race: Black/White Relations in Arkansas from Slavery
to the Present (University of Arkansas Press)
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Interested in other fiction about life in the United States during WWII? Check out...
- Caleb's Wars, by David L. Dudley
- Is It Night or Day?, by Fern Schumer Chapman
- The Whirlwind, by Carol Matas
- Homefront, by Doris Gwaltney
- The Green Glass Sea, by Ellen Klages
- House of the Red Fish and Under the Blood-red Sun, both by Graham Salisbury
- A Boy No More, by Harry Mazar
- Slap Your Sides: A Novel, by M.E. Kerr
- All Good Women, by Valerie Miner
- The Homefront: Collected Stories, by Margaret Craven