December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith
The date of the title, and the cover’s image of the “rising sun” Japanese flag give away the time and place of this book. But it isn’t set on that date, rather it is set in the days, and through flashbacks, the years leading up to Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor. The main character is an American child of missionary parents who came to Japan in the 1920s to bring Christianity to the heathens. Harry, however, is pretty much left to his own devices, and grows up going to school with Japanese boys, and being more than an outcast – he is forever the target of every military training exercise. Still, he absorbs far more love for Japan than his parents would have approved of, and makes friends and finds his place in the local culture in Tokyo, albeit in the steamier side with prostitutes, geishas, actors and theatre people.
Here he remains as an adult, somewhat torn in his sympathies – not really feeling American, but reminded at every turn how un-Japanese he is. He runs a bar, falls in love with a difficult Japanese woman, Michiko, and navigates the tricky currents of cross-cultural dealings in an increasingly fanatically nationalistic land.
It’s more of an education of samurai and Japanese culture than a mystery or thriller, I found, and the whole “will-he or won’t-he leave” dilemma that is the purported crux of the plot seems almost incidental in the end. Characters – good and bad and beautiful and ugly and very Japanese and not-so – populate the story, and Harry’s relationships to them and how he interacts are far more interesting. It serves more as a culture lesson, really.
So interesting but not suspenseful, but you might enjoy it anyway. I did.