Why this book:  Selected by my literature book club.

Summary in 3 sentences:  There are two  key protagonists in this novel, beginning with a young woman Irina who is working in a retirement home in the early 21st century in the San Francisco bay area,  an older woman Alma,  living in the independent living section of that retirement home.  Irina eventually becomes a trusted assistant to Alma, who is independently wealthy, eccentric and aloof, but who slowly begins to trust Irina to manage many of her affairs.   Irina assists Alma with sorting out her papers, paying bills  and gathering her documents, and Irina, together with Alma’s  grandson Seth begins to uncover evidence of Alma’s  mysterious past, to include a secret love affair she’d had been having for decades with a Japanese man whom she’d befriended when they were children. 

My Impressions: This is perhaps the fifth or sixth Isabel Allende book that I’ve read, and all have been engaging, interesting and a joy to read.  The time frame in The Japanese Lover jumps back and forth from the early 21st century (modern times) to the 1930s and 1940’s as we get to know a number of the characters in their youth and then later in their lives.  Over the course of telling the personal stories of her characters,  Allende gives us insights into the pre and post WWII San Francisco Jewish community, the San Francisco Japanese community, the Nisei and how they were treated in California after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and what life was like in the internment camps during the war. 

We briefly get to know the title character – the “Japanese lover” Ichimei Fukuda early in the book as the son of a Japanese Gardener working for Alma’s wealthy uncle  We get to know Alma – whose Jewish family had sent her to live with her well-to-do uncle in San Francisco in the 1930s when it became apparent that the Nazis would probably invade Poland.  As Alma’s uncle Isaac’s gardener worked his estate, his young son Ichimei assisted him, and in that process became a playmate and friend of the young Alma – just a young girl living at the estate. In this digression we learn of Alma’s past, her life with her wealthy Uncle Isaac and his family and how she became friends with Ichimei.  Then comes WWII and the Fukuda family is whisked off with most other Nisei to Japanese internment camps and we learn of their life in those very trying circumstances.  

Meanwhile Alma grows up, goes East to college and develops her own career and become a young adult. We learn sporadic events of her life – and she and Ichimei go separate ways. When the story returns to early 2000s, Irina is working for Alma and she and Seth are piecing together the puzzle of her life from bits and pieces of what they discover  – Alma is very private and won’t reveal much.  But we the readers know that she still loves Ichimei even during her  good marriage, with children and after she had established herself as an important personage in the San Francisco Jewish Community.  

We also get to know Irina’s past – a sexually abused orphan from Moldova who is adapting to life as an adult in San Francisco while hiding and sublimating her shame from her abused past.  Seth – her co-conspirator in learning about Alma’s past, is in love with her but she will not let him get close to her – and is unwilling to reveal the source of her reluctance.

At the end of the book, Alma’s health is failing, Seth and Irina are trying to find a way to connect, and Ichimei and Alma remain connected, but in secret.  Alma has a serious automobile accident and Irina and Seth work together to take care of her, and Ichimei mysteriously appears.  

I loved the story, the characters and the way Allende tells it. There is a magic here in Alma’s life and her relationships to the people she loves and grows up with, and likewise in the resilient and powerful character Irina.  And Ichimei is an iconic Japanese buddhist – who reminded me in so many ways to the Japanese gardener and protagonist in the book I’d just read, The Garden of Evening Mists.