CLARK AND DIVISION
Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister’s death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.
Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone;
Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister’s death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.
Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki’s older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family’s reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train.
Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose’s death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth.
Inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history.
- Soho Crime
- Paperback
- June 2022
- 336 Pages
- 9781641293693
Buy the Book
$16.95
About Naomi Hirahara
Naomi Hirahara is the Edgar Award–winning author of Clark and Division and the Mas Arai mystery series, including Summer of the Big Bachi, which was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and one of Chicago Tribune’s Ten Best Mysteries and Thrillers; Gasa Gasa Girl; Snakeskin Shamisen; and Hiroshima Boy. She is also the author of the LA-based Ellie Rush mysteries. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, she has co-written non-fiction books like Life after Manzanar and the award-winning Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor. The Stanford University alumna was born and raised in Altadena, CA; she now resides in the adjacent town of Pasadena, CA
Praise
Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award
Winner of The Lefty Award for Best Historical Novel
Nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel
An Anthony Award Nominee for Best Novel
A New York Times Best Mystery Novel of 2021
A Parade Magazine 101 Best Mystery Books of All Time
A Washington Post Best Mystery and Thriller of 2021
New York Public Library Best Books of 2021
“Clark and Division is a moving, eye-opening depiction of life after Manzanar. Naomi Hirahara has infused her mystery with a deep humanity, unearthing a piece of buried American history.”—George Takei
“Searing . . . This is as much a crime novel as it is a family and societal tragedy, filtering one of the cruelest examples of American prejudice through the prism of one young woman determined to assert her independence, whatever the cost.”—Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review
Discussion Questions
1. How do the opportunities and choices available to the Ito family—in terms of home, employment, education, and community—change after the bombing of Pearl Harbor? How do euphemisms such as “internment” and “relocation” diminish the harsh reality of incarceration?
2. Besides Aki, which character do you relate to most? In what ways do you think their decisions and actions during this tumultuous time resonate with your own approach and experiences?
3. Aki almost blacks out on the train ride to Chicago.What do you make of her sickness? Were you fearful when Aki heard Rose’s voice? How does forced displacement and relocation affect the body, memory, and identity?
4. In chapter 9, Aki translates kurou as “a guttural moaning, a piercing pain throughout your bones.” How does Aki cope with the grief of her sister’s death? How do her parents internalize their pain? How do the physical items Rose left behind take on a new life?
5. Aki seems driven to protect her sister’s legacy. Why do you think she takes the investigation of Rose’s death into her own hands?
6. How is Aki watched and evaluated differently—at the police station, outside the chocolate factory, inside Art’s truck—by nisei and hakujin?
7. Aki often describes herself as a lesser version of Rose. How does Aki’s definition of herself in relation to her sister change over the course of the novel?
8. What do you make of the library scene when the professor belittles Phillis? What type of connection is the author making between the discrimination against Black and Japanese American citizens?
9. Why does Aki initially feel guilty about her relationship with Art? Were you surprised that she did not tell him about her efforts to find out what happened to her sister?
10. How is police sergeant Graves responsible for Rose’s death and continued abuse against women? What is the relationship between the Chicago Japanese American community and local law enforcement? Do you think trust can exist between the police and an ethnic, racial, or religious minority community?
11. In chapter six, Aki’s mother tells her to, “Never shame us. All we have is our reputations.” How does Keizo take advantage of the silence and sacrifices demanded of Japanese American women and girls?