Clark and Division
Naomi HiraharaTwenty-year-old Aki Ito & 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 & moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark & 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, & optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, & she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth.
Inspired by historical events, Clark & Division infuses an atmospheric & heartbreakingly real crime fiction plot with rich period details & delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research & archival work in Japanese American history.