From Publishers Weekly
Vestiges of East of Eden and A Farewell to Arms haunt this earthy chronicle about ethnic synergies in California's Great Central Valley during the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Through the first-person narratives of Patrick Hart, the hotel manager in a dusty farming town in California's Great Central Valley, and the children of three families?Japanese, Italian and Portuguese?working neighboring farms, Finney shows us the dreams of these first-generation Americans as they grow to adulthood in a fertile but often unforgiving land. The Japanese siblings endure the hardship of a Depression childhood only to find themselves banished to a relocation camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. At the same time, their Italian neighbor makes a "separate peace" when he is sent back into battle (after winning a medal in the Pacific) on the Italian front, while the teenage daughter of a Portuguese dairyman and her Okie friend are left behind to protect their neighbors' fields from opportunistic real estate sharks. This poignant picture of the American system at its best (the WPA) and very worst (the relocation camps) is the work of a fine, if sentimental, storyteller. While Finney seems to divine the underlying sense of heroism and to understand the quiet drama in the workaday lives of his characters, the first-person narration is curiously more expository than personal, and Finney never quite brings his novel to life. (Mar.) FYI: The ethnic range of faces in an old school photo he found in a secondhand store inspired Finney's cast of characters.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
With California's Great Central Valley as backdrop, this novel opens in 1928 and follows the lives and times of three farming families through the Great Depression and up until World War II. Each chapter is narrated by a different character, revealing the viewpoints of the many cultural groups that lived and farmed in the area. The principals include Hortense Brazil, the daughter of Portuguese dairy farmers; Grayson Hamada, the son of Japanese strawberry farmers; Fred Leeds, an orphan who ended up in the valley after fleeing the dust bowl of Oklahoma; and Julian Palestini, the youngest son of Italian grape growers. The narratives follow the characters as they grow up, fall in love with one another, and suffer the indignities that the outbreak of war forces on their community, with Julian's account of his service in Italy particularly gripping and unforgettable. Finney, whose inspiration for the story came from an old school photo found in a second-hand store, pulls together these multicultural characters to present a moving and thoughtful account of their struggles and pleasures. Highly recommended.?Dianna Moeller, Saint Martin's Coll., Lib., Lacey, WA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
