A beautiful novel of a young Chinese/American refugee and his life when he reaches America. A fortunate circumstance provides him with a quality education and an unusual raffle sends him off to a most interesting life. Heart-wrenchingly beautiful, this story will remain in your heart and your mind for a long time after you have set down the book.

I recently read The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (I know, I'm a little late to the party), and I loved it. I was excited to get to read Ford's new book, and I think I liked it even more than The Hotel.
It's the story of Ernest, born Yung-Ku, who is born in China to a Chinese woman and a white missionary. At a very young age, he is sent alone on a ship to America, where a series of bizarre events lead him to a notorious brothel, working as a houseboy. The story is told in two alternating parts, Ernest's memories of his early childhood, and his present day life. As the book goes on, we see Ernest dealing with incredibly difficult circumstances and finally finding a family and a place where he belongs.

I love Jamie Ford's writing. I knew from the very first page that I was going to love this book. He is able to take the reader back to a place and time that is totally unfamiliar and make you understand how it felt to be living in those circumstances. Parts of this book broke my heart, particularly the early memories Ernest has of China and his voyage to America. But ultimately this is a love story, and one well worth reading.

Thanks to Net Galley for this lovely book by Jamie Ford! I have loved his others and this one did not disappoint. It gives a glimpse into the lives of a time that gone by using Seattle and its historical background as a "character".

Quick read with some very beautiful passages.

Having read and enjoyed Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, I knew I had to read Love and Other Consolation Prizes. Just as with the previous novel, this one is also a beautifully told story of love. Switching between telling in present day and going back in time is done seamlessly. Jamie Ford's descriptions of Seattle and the World's Fair made me feel I was there, experiencing the auction, the first cars on the road, the poverty, and the "over the top" ways of the brothel. This is not a fast story, rather it is told slowly in a way that will draw you in and make you not want to put the book down.

Book review: Jamie Ford weaves another beautiful tapestry in 'Love and Other Consolation Prizes'
By SANDY MAHAFFEY FOR THE FREE LANCE–STAR
Sep 16, 2017
Jamie Ford has a wonderful gift. He nimbly takes the reader into forgotten pieces of history, filling the masterfully created story with characters so real they will stay with you for some time to come. “Love and Other Consolation Prizes” is another winner for the author. His books are a tribute to his own heritage—his father is Chinese. They are not simple love stories, they are stories with real substance. (See the brief at bottom right about Ford’s local visit Oct. 10.)

This narrative primarily takes place in two eras in Seattle, focused around two different World’s Fairs, one in 1909, the other in 1959. In China, Yung Kun-ai’s destitute mother sells him to be sent to the United States with a number of other children from Asia—they will be indentured servants or perhaps even worse. He becomes Ernest and is fortunate to be sponsored to attend a private school where he receives an education, but is then sent to the 1909 World’s Fair to be auctioned off.

The highest bidder is a Madam, so he moves to the Tenderloin district and becomes a house boy. Although he initially thinks his life has been destroyed, he actually finds a family and happiness in the brothel. He is reunited with scullery maid Fahn, a young Japanese girl he befriended on the ship and meets Maisie, the secret daughter of Madame Flora. The three resilient young people bond to learn together, love one another and become family.

In 1959, Ernest is a senior citizen whose wife, Gracie, seems to have lost her memory. Their daughter Juju is a reporter looking for a good feature story to tie in with the upcoming World’s Fair. She comes across an old article about a boy named Ernest who was auctioned at the 1909 fair, and suspects it may be her father. Reluctantly he agrees to tell her his story.
As in his previous books, Ford has woven a beautiful tapestry—the desperation of Yung’s mother in China; the abusive treatment of the children on the ship; Ernest’s sense of isolation at the school; the family of love he finds at the brothel; the judgmental “Mothers of Virtue” who keep trying to rescue him; and Ernest’s struggle to reveal their past to his daughter all meld wonderfully to create an engaging look at a rather disturbing part of our country’s history which most are unaware even happened.

Sandy Mahaffey is a former Books editor at The Free Lance–Star.

This is my first Jamie Ford book, but I couldn’t resist it after reading the synopsis.

Ernest is half Chinese and was brought over to the United States when he was a child, along with many other children from China and Japan. Many didn’t survive the trip over and those that did usually had a hard life waiting for them.

Ernest bounced around in his youth before being auctioned off at the Alaska Yukon Pacific expo in Seattle.

The story takes off from there and focuses on Ernest’s life at the Tenderloin while alternating back and forth with his future point of view dealing with his wife’s health problems and her remembering their crazy past.

The story was truly sad and sweet. I didn’t expect to feel so invested in the characters and their plight, but I was. I was completely invested and rooting in a love that didn’t work out. However, the way the story went was just as good deserving. The story really shows how life doesn’t always go as planned and sometimes you meet someone or 2 someones and it just works out the way it does.

“There are people in our lives whom we love, and lose, and forever long for. They orbit our hearts like Halley’s Comet, crossing into our universe only once, or if we’re lucky, twice in a lifetime. And when they do, they affect our gravity.” He said, “You know what I mean? These people are special.”


Such a good book, truly well written and beautiful. Read it!

I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.


Also posted in Litsy.

If you are familiar with author Jamie Ford’s work then you know he finds the smallest nugget of a long forgotten story and brings it to us on a platter. In this, his newest, we are taken to the Seattle World’s Fair in 1909. I think we forget in this age of access-to-everything that there was a time when the World’s Fairs brought the newest and strangest and most exciting of the future to our doors.
Ernest Young is twelve years old and half Chinese. He is living in an orphan home and it has been decided that he must go. When Ernest is given a ticket to the fair he thinks he won the best prize ever but when he arrives he discovers he is the prize. He is to be raffled off to anyone, hopefully to someone willing to give him a good home.
Ernest is rescued, so to speak, when the madam of a high class brothel takes him home to be house boy to the girls. He certainly has an interesting life, makes friends of Maisie, the madam’s daughter, and Fahn, a maid, and becomes invaluable to the brothel.
As it becomes evident the occupational hazards of being a madam in a brothel have taken hold, their world begins to come apart. Loyalties, futures, first loves, all must be acknowledged.
We are being told this story by Ernest fifty years after the fact, and that, too, is an important element. There is nothing not to like in a Jamie Ford book.

Heartbreakingly and traumatically real! Love and Other Consolation Prizes is a devastating look at some of the hidden parts of American history. Shared through the eyes of a Chinese immigrant, the uglier sides of humanity are exposed and interwoven with his hopes for love as his narrative unfolds. Beautiful in its honesty--I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

Jamie Ford’s new book Love and Other Consolation Prizes is a trip down the midway of two separate World’s Fair celebrations, in 1909 and 1962 Seattle, which both figure in the plot. Like Ford’s other books, it’s told from the viewpoint of a Chinese American boy. In this case, our hero is Ernest Young, whose mother sells him to American traders planning to ship him to Seattle.

Ernest struggles to find his place in the world until he’s auctioned off as a “healthy young boy” by the orphanage where he lives. Although not what the upstanding Christian women expected, the winning ticket is held by the notorious Madam Flora, owner of a high-class brothel. Ernest is the new houseboy, and makes fast friends with Maisie and Fahn, two other young members of the household.

The story is told in alternating time frames, combining Ernest’s younger life and his retelling to his journalist daughter. Ford immerses the reader in another time and place, with evocative descriptions that make Seattle practically a character in the story.

Ford also takes up his previous theme of kids caught in a cultural crossfire. In this case it’s crossfire of suffragists and other religious zealots against the red-light district businesses and patrons. It’s also the question of whether immigrants retain their cultural identity as they assimilate. Ford treats these themes with delicacy and sensitivity.

Ernest is the kind of earnest young man (wow – lots of puns there!) who wears his emotions on his sleeve. He desires a better life, and a companion with which to share it. But most of all he longs for love, having left all family behind in China. He finds home and family at Madam Flora’s, but love is complicated, especially in a Jamie Ford novel.

I’ll be thinking of Ernest and his Seattle compatriots for some time to come.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A highly enjoyable story, which was both suspenseful and emotional. I enjoyed the easy transitions and dynamic contrasts between the two historical periods in this book.

What a beautiful love story. But it is also a heart wrenching tale, a tale of a young boy who is shipped off to America, all alone. But somehow he makes it and finds love and friendship.

There is always so much depth to Ford's stories as he weaves his wonderful imagination into the stories he has heard growing up. He creates such interesting page turners, full of amazing and memorable characters. His stories show us the hardships of Chinese-Americans and give us a glimpse into their lives.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes is based on a true story and it's hard to imagine one person going through all that Ernest had to go through. I loved him from the beginning and marveled at his strength as he went from day to day. This is a story that will stay with me for a long time as I think of that little boy and the journey he takes to find love and friendship.

I received this ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

Set in the early 1900's, 12 yr old Ernest is raffled off at the fair and won by a madam. We follow him as he grows up in the infamous madam's house. He is befriended by the daughter of the madam and a Japanese kitchen servant. Their friendship is the first love that Ernest has ever known.

I loved the way Ford weaves fact with fiction. I would definitely recommend this book. Must Read.

4☆

This story is about a Chinese immigrant boy named Ernest who is sent to America by his starving mother as her final gift to him. At Seattle's World Fair in 1909, he is raffled off to a lady who shows him a world that most don't witness. He learns about love and devotion in a very unconventional setting at a very young age.

The story flashes back and forth from Ernest as a young boy and teenager to Ernest and his family, where one of his daughters is unraveling the truth on how her parents met. The love story was touching and drew me in quickly. It showed that love can be found instantly and after that first kiss. Ernest's loyalty to his chosen family and friends made you fall in love with his character from the start.

My Rating: 5 stars

When I finished reading Jamie Ford’s newest novel Love and Other Consolation Prizes, the first words that came into my mind were “heartbreaking” and “heartwarming.” I felt both emotions strongly throughout the time I was immersed in the story of Ernest Young, an elderly man in his 60s when the story begins in 1962, and his beloved wife Gracie, who is suffering from memory loss and barely remembers who her husband is. As Ernest stands outside the gates of Seattle’s newest world’s fair, the Century 21 Expo, his memories flow back to the city’s very first world’s fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYP), back in 1909 – a day that changed his life forever. That was the day that, at 12 years old, he was “auctioned off” at the fair, given away as the grand prize in a raffle, technically for the second time. Prior to that, at 5 years old, when he was still a little boy named Yung Kun-ai living in poverty with his mother in China, he was sent away with an “uncle” who would supposedly take him to America so he could live a better life free from starvation. Little Yung does make it to America and eventually becomes a ward of the state of Washington, but not before suffering various hardships and discrimination due to his status as a ‘half-breed’ – the “bastard son of a white missionary and a Chinese girl, he was an outcast in both of their worlds.” Later, he is taken in by Madam Flora, the “winner” of the raffle at the 1909 world’s fair, who also happens to be the owner of a notorious brothel named the Tenderloin, located in the red-light district in the seediest part of town. Ernest becomes a houseboy helping out with various chores at the brothel and it is there that he meets Maisie, the secret daughter of Madam Flora, and Fahn, a young Japanese maid who works in the kitchen -- together with the other women who live and work at the Tenderloin, they become the first real “family” – albeit an unconventional one – that Ernest ever had.

By now, I believe most already know that this story was inspired by a real event – the raffle that truly did take place in real-life, at the 1909 AYP World’s Fair where an infant boy, also named Ernest, was put up as the “grand prize”. That raffle did not result in a winner and it is not known what eventually happened to the infant boy, but with the seed of that event, Ford turns it into a story that imagines what might have happened to that boy, with the difference being that the Ernest in Ford’s story is a 12-year-old boy rather than an infant. Ford also incorporates some of his own heritage into his stories, as anyone who is familiar with Ford’s background will probably know that he is also of mixed-race, with a Chinese father and an “adopted” American last name (Ford) that came about when his 100% Chinese great-grandfather decided to adopt the name William Ford when he immigrated to America back in the late 1800s. I love the personal touch that Ford incorporates into his stories and the fact that he pays tribute to his heritage, all done in a way that is seamless yet meaningful.

There was so much to love about this book, as it truly combined the best of everything I normally look for in historical fiction: a well-written, captivating story that pulled me in from the start; a good dose of historical content that was obviously thoroughly researched yet did not take away from the flow of the fictional part of the story; a non-typical love story that tugged at the heartstrings without diving into “overly saccharine” territory; endearing characters who, despite being deeply flawed, you can’t help but care about personally and eventually grow to love; wonderful writing that transported me to the time and place that the characters lived in and made the experience feel like a personal one. Ford is known for crafting tender, moving stories that incorporate aspects of hope and redemption and this was definitely the case here with Ernest’s story and the love he had for both Maisie and Fahn. The ending to their story moved me to tears yet it was not sad or depressing but rather a scene filled with hope that made me feel good inside – I love the way the story came full circle, bookended by the two world’s fairs that also played such important roles in Ernest’s story.

I also liked the fact that this wasn’t a typical love story, but rather a story with substance that also dealt with important societal issues – questions of right and wrong, moral versus immoral and who has the right to judge. Also topics such as equality, social justice, class issues, women’s rights, slavery, etc. – all heavy subjects that were dealt with in a way that didn’t make light of their existence but at the same time did not weigh down the story with gloom or despair and also did not try to “preach” or attempt to provide any answers, instead letting the reader go with the story and see where it leads.

This is my first time reading Jamie Ford and it certainly won’t be my last! While I wait patiently to get my hands on whatever Ford decides to write next, for sure I will be moving up the two previous novels he wrote (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Songs of Willow Frost) from my TBR so I can get to both of them before the end of the year. If you haven’t read Love and Consolation Prizes yet, all I can say is – READ IT! Wonderful book, highly recommended!

Received advance reader’s copy from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

The story starts with Ernest Young as a small boy after his Chinese mother has sent him sailing for a better life in America, where he is auctioned off at the 1909 Seattle Exposition.* That piece of history, that such a thing really happened, is a troubling one to be sure and was one of the more interesting aspects. But this is one of those times when I felt that the concept of a story was lost in the execution of it. The pace was uneven, slow to start, better in the middle, and an ending that seemed to drag out over several chapters.

Ernest as a boy falls in love with two girls, and is as an adult recounting their adventures growing up in a brothel, while anticipating the 1962 Seattle World's Fair with his wife, Gracie. Early on we know that one of those young girls is Gracie, although that's not either of their names. So you keep reading to figure out this odd puzzle.

I really had high hopes for this one. Ford's first book is one of my favorites, but the next and this one were lacking that certain something that puts you on edge and makes you excited to pick it back up again where you left off. Ernest was such a sweet character but I think he deserved a better story with more interesting players on his team. I saw many similarities with On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, but this one didn't match up. I do appreciate receiving an advanced copy from NetGalley and the publisher.

*(I just had to go to Wikipedia to learn more about the auction, and maybe the finished book includes this in the author's note, I don't know:
"A month-old orphaned boy named Ernest was raffled away as a prize. Although a winning ticket was drawn, nobody claimed the prize. The ultimate destiny of the child was still being investigated in 2009." I do hope that little Ernest had a great life, and not in a brothel.)

Readers will fall in love and root for Ernest, an orphan sent to America by his mother who basically threw him onto a ship. This story tracks his life and it is such a beautifully written story.

When the World's Fair comes to Seattle in 1962, Ernest Young's reporter daughter JuJu wants to know more about Ernest's connection to the first World's Fair (then called the Alaskan Yukon Pacific Expo) held in Seattle in 1909. As he faces his daughter's questions, as well as dealing with his wife's health issues, Ernest reflects on his early life--when he, a half-Chinese, half-white immigrant, was a raffle prize at the fair. When the winner--the owner of a brothel--claims him, Ernest finds himself with a family of sorts for the first time and in love with two girls--Maisie, the daughter of the brothel owner, and Fahn, a Japanese servant.

This book was absolutely engrossing. In some ways it's not an easy read, seeing the heartache and hardship in Ernest's life, as well as the experiences of Fahn and Maisie. It's a sobering look at the way Americans essentially kidnapped Asian people and auctioned them to the highest bidder and at racism, hypocrisy, and more. However, it's also so much more than that, with a collection of unforgettable characters and relationships. It looks at human nature, and at survival, and at love, and it's so well-written, alternating between Ernest's early life and his life in 1962. I was a little nervous about how it was going to end--but I loved it. Ernest is one of those characters you just fall in love with, and his story is definitely worth reading.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for allowing me to read an ARC. All opinions are my own.

Jamie Ford has a unique voice and I am so thankful that he uses it to tell us stories that highlight and interpret the mistakes of the past, and give us a window on the humanity of history. This is one of the best books I have read recently.

LOVE AND OTHER CONSOLATION PRIZES by Jamie Ford is as beautiful narrative. The story alternates between early 1900s and 1960s and is told through the viewpoint of Ernest, a Chinese boy brought to America when he was 5 years old and who is raffled off at the Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo in Seattle. The description of the places he goes and the people he meets are very well written, as are the emotions of a young boy becoming a man and an old man remembering when he was a boy. Ford has the ability to put the reader on the crowded streets and reveals the twists in perfectly timed intervals. It was a beautiful reading experience with the perfect ending. I would recommend this novel to anyone who likes a good historical novel and to anyone that has read and enjoyed his other novel, HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In fact,

Things I liked:

1. It was unclear for at least two-thirds of the book who Ernest would end up with. We knew that he loved both Fahn and Maisie/Mayflower, but their lives were so entangled that we couldn't tell who he ended up marrying. Ford really makes you wonder, and that was clever writing.
2. Starting in the present, then telling the backstory from way back when, that always works for me. I thought the 1909-1911 story was more involving, but I'm a history buff. I loved loved loved the descriptions of the fair.
3. Love will make you feel like you're at that brothel seeing those banner-waving marchers coming down the street, at first watching gleefully and in later months peeking through the windows.
4. Issues of the day like mixed race children, prohibition marches, and drowned orphans are addressed in a practical voice that sounds natural to the times.

Things I didn't like as much:

1. Like books where a lot of things HAPPEN? You may be disappointed. This is contemplative, the story unfolding at its own pace. At times it feels a little slow, and it's mostly about relationships (a century ago, but still).
2. Maisie's story felt a little unfinished, and without giving away the plot I can't say more than that.

All in all, I liked it a lot and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Waffled between 4 and 5 stars but the writing was polished and that always tips me over.

*ARC via netgalley*