Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil [Paperback]

David Mas Masumoto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1999

"[E]vocative and lyrical. . . . Masumoto writes with a keen sense of indebtedness and gratitude to the many individuals who make up the entity he calls his family."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

David Mas Masumoto, best-selling author of Epitaph for a Peach, returns to the same ground but digs even deeper in a new, "more ambitious book" in which "he lets his philosophy about man and nature emerge from an absorbing chronicle of his life and that of his Japanese antecedents" (The Economist). This is a book about working alongside the ghosts of generations past, about the search for roots in the tragic history of internment camps and in the rural culture of Japan. It is equally about renewal-reinvigorating the farm with organic techniques, teaching his children how to carry on the work that eighty acres of peaches and grapes demand. Masumoto knits past and present to achieve a rare and essential harmony: holding on to what matters, despite the pressures of time and change. "Take your time, linger" with the book, counsels the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Masumoto's serene tales . . . are like a balm." He is a "remarkable" author, sums up The Atlantic, "with a field, and a sensibility, peculiarly his own."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Masumoto's Epitaph for a Peach described his love affair with a fragile, imperfect variety of peach. Here, he continues his meditation on the farm that has been in his family for three generations, reflecting on and celebrating his Japanese-American heritage as he prunes vines, digs hardpan, clears itchy grass and picks grapes. He skillfully writes on the practicalities of Thompson grapes becoming raisins and of those same divine Sun Crest peaches that never made it to market. In doing so, he reveals his sadness at never having known his grandfathers and his frustrating quest to hone the skills he needs to continue the farm. From his fertile, if sometimes inconstant, farm, he travels to the arid desert of Arizona's Gila River Relocation Center, where his family, like thousands of other Japanese Americans, were interned during WWII. Almost nothing of the camp remains but a pile of broken, thick white dishes. "I brought them back to show my parents... Dad grabbed the platter between a firm thumb and curled fingers and held it up as if to receive a helping of mash or a spoonful of beans. They exchanged a subtle grin that quickly disappeared when Dad shook his head and set down the fragment." In this evocative and lyrical pleasure, metaphors of sowing, cultivating and reaping conjoin to describe the deepest roots of sustenance and nurturing found in families. Here, Masumoto writes with a keen sense of indebtedness and gratitude to the many individuals who make up the entity he calls his family.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this autobiographical sequel to Epitaph for a Peach (LJ 4/1/95), Masumoto describes his life growing up in a Japanese American farm family in California's Central Valley. He relates his life on the farm as a boy and his ideas about running the 80-acre spread after he took over from his father. Masumoto's experiences pruning grape vines, drying raisins, and tending the peach crop, as well as his thoughts on tractor driving, battling hardpan soils, accumulating junk, the joys of sweating, the pleasures of hard work, and other tidbits of farm life are recounted in vivid detail. He devotes a large portion of his book to discussing his Japanese heritage, including the effect of the World War II internment of Japanese Americans on his family and friends. Masumoto's account of his visit to Japan in an attempt to learn the Japanese language and find his remaining relatives is heartwarming and witty. He writes with an appealing serenity and gentle manner. Highly recommended.
-?Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Lib., New Brunswick,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (September 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393319741
• ISBN-13: 978-0393319743
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #801,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN AFFECTING MEMOIR - JOYFUL AND POIGNANT, December 22, 2000

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil (Paperback)

A third generation Japanese-American, agriculturist David Masumoto farms peaches and raisins. He celebrates nature, savoring seasons when "The air is filled with the smell of drying grapes - a caramel fragrance mixed with an earthy aroma."

He is a champion of hard work, viewing calluses as "badges of honor earned only after years in the fields,...The hands tell a story of worth..."

And, as evidenced in his affecting memoir, Harvest Son, he is an author whose fluid pen scrolls as gracefully as kanji, the ancient Japanese script in which each word is a picture. Evocative descriptions of abundant harvests and the delicately limned shade of a near-ripe peach are lyric testimony that farming is not only his occupation, it is his modus vivendi.

Writing with spare yet lustrous precision, Mr. Masumoto traces his life's journey in flashbacks, exploring the past to chart his future. Having learned that in 1942 his grandparents, along with some 16,000 Japanese-Americans were relocated to internment camps, Mr. Masumoto embarked on a painful quest, searching the Arizona desert for traces of the Gila River Relocation Center, his family's four-year home. "A few low cement pillars sunken into the ground" and "a pile of broken thick white dishes" were the only remnants of those interrupted lives.

Another pilgrimage was to Japan, where he found his grandmother's brother. Held hostage by rice paddies, his uncle's farmhouse "looked like the face of an old man with wrinkles and age spots." The floor was of packed earth..." But, blessings of all blessings, there was the "ofuro" or Japanese hot tub, which "Following a day in the fields, ...tempered worn and broken spirits. The soothing water fostered a benevolence and a feeling of optimism."

Mr. Masumoto eventually returned to the California valley of his childhood, where he found satisfaction and a connectedness in tending the vines planted by his grandfathers. From the author we learn a Japanese word "shoganai" meaning "it can't be helped." This is a word borne of forbearance, we are told, as despite their painful past Japanese-Americans accepted their new country "with a bow of humility. Not weakness but silent strength."

When a surprise hailstorm destroyed what promised to be a bumper crop, Mr. Masumoto asked himself why he continued to farm. His answer may be "shoganai."

Today, Mr. Masumoto is a leader in his local Buddhist community, one of the few sansei or third generation Japanese-Americans who remain in the farmland that nurtured them. It is left to him to serve as chairman at many funerals, as one generation honors another. Harvest Son is a joyful, poignant reminder that it is both duty and privilege to do so.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific follow up, June 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil (Paperback)

After reading EPITAPH FOR A PEACH, I hungrily hunted down HARVEST SON. This is nature writing at it's finest! At once a touching and poetic account of family life on an organic peach farm and vineyard. The reader is likely to run the gamut of emotions as Masumoto describes losing a crop of peaches to a damaging and wicked storm, makes a pilgrimmage to Japan to learn of his family's history and culture, or has a blast while fertilizing young peach trees "by hand" - his wife and son riding with him on the back of a wagon throwing organic fertilizer at the trees with old coffee cans. His 10 year old daughter jerks them along as she learns to drive the tractor. HARVEST SON is a warm, funny and insightful book that will not disappoint!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dream World Mystery, May 26, 2002

By 

Neil Scott Mcnutt (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shaman Winter (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the third book in the series by Anaya involving his heros Sonny Baca and Rita Lopez and their battles with Sonny's opponent Raven. To appreciate this book, you really need to start at the beginning and follow the story through the various phases. The first book "Zia Summer" sets the stage with the principal characters in the context of the New Mexico Pueblo Indian culture. The second book "Rio Grande Fall" takes you through the battles of Sonny and Raven in the context of the multiple layers of culture (Native American, Hispanic and Anglo) in the Rio Grande Valley. You get a wonderful tour of the cultures in each of these books. This third book "Shaman Winter" is the height of the mystical battle and the Pueblo Indian cultures interpretation of dreams. In this book there also is more of a direct message to the Nuevo Mexicano people that your existence is destroyed by those who rob you of your dreams and who rob you of your historical context. "History belongs to those who write it." Certainly this is a powerful message to the Hispanic people who must feel acutely the loss of their heritage in the Anglo culture and the denial of their dreams of a homeland and a peaceful existance. One of the most powerful moments in the book is the depiction of the Long Walk of the Navaho people and the impact on their women. This is conscience-raising but not distracting from the story line. The story is fascinating in the mystical interpretation of dreams. You have to be willing to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride to enjoy this story. If your are able to do so, the journey is a wonderful one, full of twists, and goes off like the finale of a July 4th fireworks display in all the plots and subplots at the dramatic ending. Note that the ending leaves room to look forward to another book in the series.