A discussion of two historical novels set in Southern California with authors Naomi Hirahara and D.K. Furutani will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Montana Branch Library, 1704 Montana Ave., Santa Monica.
“Crown City”: In turn-of-the-century California, two Japanese amateur detectives uncover the dark underbelly of their multicultural city — from Naomi Hirahara, the Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of “Clark and Division.”
Pasadena, 1903: 18-year-old Ryunosuke “Ryui” Wada staggers off the boat from Yokohama, ready to reinvent himself after the untimely deaths of his parents. Though battling loneliness and culture shock, Ryui does his best to settle into his work as an art dealer’s apprentice while adjusting to his new home.
From his enigmatic photographer roommate, Jack, to the beautiful seamstress living downstairs, Ryui finds himself surrounded by colorful characters and unbelievable opportunities and is soon utterly swept up in all “Crown City” has to offer.
But tensions are seething under Pasadena’s bustling prosperity. Ryui is the victim of an anti-Japanese attack, and a painting is stolen from the studio of Toshio Aoki, Pasadena’s most successful Japanese artist, who then hires Ryui and Jack to investigate. It’s not long before their sleuthing leads them into real danger. Ryui is a naive young man in a foreign country — has he bitten off more than he can chew?
In this fish-out-of-water mystery, studded with cameos by real historical figures, Edgar Award–winner Hirahara brings to life a little-known slice of California history.
“When Mikan Road Was Ours”: Winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest, D.K. Furutani’s gripping, sincere debut novel is set across four generations of a Japanese American family living in California’s vibrant agricultural heartlands, exploring the sharp edges of inheritance and what it means to truly belong.
Amid a sweltering Los Angeles heat wave, Murano, a reclusive high school English teacher, is muddling through life. Reeling from his father’s sudden death as well as his own recent cancer diagnosis, he passes time hazily grading papers and appeasing disgruntled parents while counting down each day until summer vacation.
The monotony breaks when he inherits his great-uncle Benjiro’s unpublished memoir. What Murano expects to be a grim reminder of his position as the half-white son of the family’s outcast instead whisks him away to 1930s California, to a time when the Murano family was inseparable, relishing life together on their bucolic farm.
As the memoir introduces him to relatives he never knew existed and unearths hidden complexities of the past, Murano is pulled close to the Japanese identity he’s dismissed all of his life. Faced with the reality of his family’s dissolution, Murano becomes determined to understand its breaking point following their incarceration in American concentration camps during World War II, no matter what hidden truths he might uncover about his ancestors or himself.
Lovingly crafted with poignant and profound attention to historical detail, “When Mikan Road Was Ours” is a rich meditation on belonging that seamlessly blends the intricacies of heritage, the resilience of family bonds, and the struggle to reconcile a past filled with both heartache and hope.
Book sale and signing will follow. Info: www.santamonica.gov/events