I like making personal connections to stories I’m reading and I was reading this as conservatives led by Donald Trump called for the removal of Muslims from the US. Alma, who escaped Nazi Poland as a child comes to the US to live with wealthy relatives who raise her as their own child. She falls in love with the son of the Japanese gardener. She never has the courage to marry him, marrying her adopted brother instead. But the love never dies, and her love of both her husband and her Japanese lover remain with her to the end of her life. Told in flashbacks as her grandson and a caretaker discover the letters exchanged between Alma and an unknown person. They delve into her background and discover a rich history.

Bottom line: this is good, but not one of Allende's best. Allende fans will read and appreciate it. It's unlikely to draw in new readers unfamiliar with her work.

The Japanese Lover was our August book group pick. Unfortunately, most of us had lots of issues with this story.

First, here's a description of the story line ---

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family—like thousands of other Japanese Americans—are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world.

Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco’s charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

Group Comments -

Book was poorly written - grammar, lack of punctuation, just a bad translation in general
Might have benefited from some actual dialogue
It seemed like the author tried to throw in every issue she could think of - WWII, Japanese Internment camps, racism, illegal abortion, homosexuality, sex trafficking, child porn, assisted suicide and even AIDS
Alma, the main character, was a selfish individual that was hard to sympathize with. She was a woman living in wealth yet she would meet her lover at a run-down, rat infested, motel.
Irina was unlikeable as well: she spies on Alma and, although she had 3 jobs, she lives in a rat infested place with no bathroom and even has to shower at the old age home where she worked.
Overall opinion was - Disappointing


https://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-japanese-lover-isabel-allende.html

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende is a novel of romance, triumph, prejudice and the tragedy of love and war in a time in America that so many would like to pretend did not happen. Allende weaves this tale without drifting into the unrealistic realm of love lost. No, instead she makes this very real, with all the pain and heartache that follows. A love with consequences.

Poland, in 1939 comes under the dark shroud that would be Nazi Germany. Alma Belasco's parents, seeing what is coming, send their daughter away to America in the care of family. Thinking that they will be able to soon have her returned once Poland rids itself of the Nazi scourge. Unfortunately, they are wrong in that assumption and Alma soon loses all the family she has ever known.

In San Francisco, with her wealthy Aunt and Uncle, Alma must begin a new life. As war rages in Europe, in America is in relative peace. The country wanting to remain neutral. Alma lives with her cousins and comes to care for the young, gentle son of the family's gardener; Ichimei Fukuda. Their gentle love begins to blossom and grow until the day the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and war comes to the states. Everything that Alma fled comes to find her in her safe home as the Fukudas are taken away to concentration camps, just like her parents in Poland.

Decades have passed and Irina Bazili, an Eastern European immigrant is struggling to survive in modern day San Francisco. She takes a job as a care giver at the Lark House, a unique nursing home for the elderly. Here she finds peace and respite from her troubled past. One day a new addition comes to Lark House, someone very different from the rest of the residents. An independant and wealthy elderly woman who has decided that she is done with the world and wishes to spend the rest of her time no longer living the life of privilege she once had. Irina comes to care for and about the elderly woman Alma, and her grandson, Seth.

Seth, confused as the rest of his family is at his grandmother's decision to leave the world behind and spend the rest of her years in Lark House, decides to visit his grandmother often and in doing so, finds himself falling for the withdrawn and beautiful Irina. He decides to write a history of his family and of Alma and convinces Irina to help him. The truths and secrets they uncover speak of a life filled with hope and tragedy. Of love lost and put aside. And of a series of mysterious gifts and letters written to Alma from a man they had never heard of. A man called Ichimel.

The mistake that will be made here is to think that The Japanese Lover is a tale of romance and love. Allende does not confine her novel to these limits. It is a historical novel, yes, but even beyond that. At its heart it is a tale of humanity and survival and the cost of survival. It is also a tale of what happens when what you love stands in the path of what you think you need. The betrayal and the sacrifice and the regrets that follow. The consequences of a love left behind and the memories of what might of been.

It is courageous of Allende to also to draw a straight line between the actions of Nazis in Europe to those done in America to the Japanese and Japanese/Americans during World War II. The uprooting of families, the theft of identity and property, the imprisonment of men, women and children; when the only crime they committed was that they were a perceived threat to the sovereignty of a frightened nation. There is a thin line between Nationalism and Socialism, and both end in Tyranny.

A remarkably good read.

I'm not familiar with Allende's other works, but I wanted to read this based on her name and reputation. Unfortunately, this started out feeling very choppy to me and I stopped reading it.

I was drawn to young Irina and the beautiful relationship she forms with Alma. Each woman has something to offer the other. Allende shows us respect, love, the need for privacy, and the importance of autonomy as Alma ages and Irina matures. It's a lovely story, with an ending I didn't see coming. I loved the setting, mourned with both as they came to grips with losing loved ones, and found my hopes enlarging as life progressed. A gorgeous story, strongly recommended.