Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

I grew up on the rainy side of the Cascades. I moved away for awhile and was freaked out by a year of blue skies in Northern California as they went through a drought, but then got pretty used to it. Dry skies and actual seasons for a few years in Colorado seemed pretty neat and we moved back to that on the dry East side of the Cascades. I talked with someone in Salem before our move who commented on it being the 99^th day of straight rain; it seemed like he was bragging! All this to explain why I do feel somewhat nostalgic about books set in Seattle, or points north, that bring up rain and blackberries (one thing I do miss about the rainy side). Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins is an example of this somewhat limited genre as is Where’d You Go, Bernadette. 

Where’d You Go, Bernadette has a whacky contemporary feel to it. Bernadette is trying to adjust to life in Seattle after moving from LA – it’s been more than 10 years since they moved. She’s married and has an 8^th grader at a nearby private school. She calls all the other parents at the school “gnats.” That gives you an idea of how well she’s adjusting. Her husband is a big shot at Microsoft and there’s even a depiction of him giving a TED talk in the book. If you haven’t listened to any TED talks before, here’s a good one to start with: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html. The author also likes it.

The action starts to really pick up when Bernadette’s daughter, Bee, requests a trip to Antarctica. Bernadette doesn’t really leave the house so this entails her hiring a virtual assistant from India. The story is partly told via the e-mails between Bernadette and this assistant. It’s also told from the point-of-view of her daughter after Bernadette’s gone missing and Bee is trying to find any information about her at all. Bernadette’s back story as an architect is pretty interesting. 

This is a fun book. I think PNW’s will appreciate it as well as any of those exiled from these parts and missing it. If anyone knows of other fiction books that fit into this genre, I’d love to hear about them.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

What a great title! This novel, set in Seattle during World War II and 1986, follows Chinese American Henry Lee. Henry is twelve years old in 1942 and has recently had his parents tell him to speak only English. This is difficult as although Henry goes to an all white school on scholarship, his parents only speak Chinese. His father follows the war effort closely and has significant interest in seeing the Japanese defeated in China. He has Henry wear a button that states, “I am Chinese.”

In Seattle at the time Chinatown and Japantown were very close geographically but separate entities, and when a Japanese student, Keiko Okabe, starts at Henry’s school he is unsure what to make of her. They soon become good friends as they are both scholarship students and have to work together at the school. The story revolves around their growing friendship, Henry’s clashes with his dad over this friendship, and the impending internment of Keiko and her family.

I’ve read a few books about the impact of Japanese internment camps on Japanese Americans, including the novel Snow Falling on Cedars and more recently the non-fiction book Stubborn Twig. This novel addresses a few more issues I’ve never considered. There were thousands of Japanese Americans living in Seattle. How were they relocated? What happened to their property and their belongings? The descriptions of the temporary camp at the Puyallup Washington State Fairgrounds and the more permanent one in Minidoka, Idaho seem unreal.

The story of Henry as a young teen during World War II is interspersed with Henry’s life in 1986. He’s now widowed and has a college age son. Henry hears about belongings from World War II found in an old hotel and that starts him on a search to find out what happened to Keiko. I highly recommend this book. It is much more readable than Stubborn Twig and also gives some insight into what other ethnic groups felt about the Japanese relocation and internment.

oxygen by Carol Cassella

This novel centers around the life of Marie Heaton, an anesthesiologist at a hospital in Seattle. It is written by a practicing anesthesiologist and is an interesting look into this profession. The story points out how much time and consideration one may take choosing a particular doctor for a surgery, but the anesthesiologist is usually whoever is assigned to that particular surgeon on that day. They rarely meet with the patient for more than five minutes. It seems like there should be more choice and input on the part of the patient, if this person is in complete control of your sedation.

Marie is portrayed as a very kind and caring doctor. She tries to make her five minutes with each patient reassuring. A surgery that she works on results in a death and the anesthesia is thought to be to blame. She takes this very hard. I found this surprising; of course, my only experience comes from watching ER where lots of patients die. On TV, at least, as long as the doctors did their best they pick up and move on. Marie cannot seem to move beyond this case and goes over and over in her mind what could have been done differently.

It is at this point, when for the first time she feels vulnerable in her career, that her father is becoming more and more ill. It is clear that either Marie or her sister will have to do something. This takes Marie away from Seattle and her problems there and down to Texas. The contrast between her sister’s life with a husband and three kids and Marie’s solitary life is readily apparent. How Marie resolves longstanding issues with her father and the potential harm to her career from the unexpected death in surgery is at the crux of this book.

There is a significant amount of detail in the book about what being an anesthesiologist is like. Here Marie reflects on her skills after reading the autopsy of the difficult case: “I have lost the ability to look at a stranger’s face without estimating the ease of difficulty of intubating their trachea. I have forgotten what it was like to be ignorant of the telltale clues that failing internal organs and multiplying infectious organisms surreptitiously display. Physical diagnosis is the study of optical illusions, the art of seeing through what is expected in order to detect which part of the pictures is changed, what hidden shape hides in the shadows and creases of familiar scenes. Since I began medical school fifteen years ago this second sight has seeped into me the way tea stains dental enamel or cigarettes color smokers’ fingers. To read Jolene’s autopsy report is to slap my forehead - my own moment of ‘Aha!’”

I’m looking forward to more from this author. I did wonder why the cover of this book has a picture of a button down white collar shirt on it – maybe it is supposed to belong to the patient who died? Anyway, it does not make for a very interesting cover.