WWII Home Front: North AmericaJump to: Internment Camps and the Asian-American Experience Click on the title for more information from Powell's Books or another online source. 
With so many American men overseas with the armed forces, American women helped keep the war effort and the economy in general going by working in factories or taking other employment outside the home. U.S. physicists raced against the clock, and sometimes their consciences, to develop an atomic bomb. After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Americans did not suffer another successful attack on the homeland, but fears of another attack affected American policy. Americans of Japanese descent were sent to internment camps in inland areas, even though the vast majority were patriotic citizens, and many were relatives of Japanese-American soldiers serving overseas. Returning soldiers were profoundly changed by the war. Many found it difficult to talk about the violence they experienced; black G.I.s who had fought alongside white fellow soldiers returned to find racial prejudice still alive and well at home. POW Camps, Internment Camps and the Asian-American Experience
Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (2009), a coming-of-age story about a Chinese boy and a Japanese girl growing up in Seattle during World War II.David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars (1994), about a man whose love for a Japanese-American girl sent to a relocation camp during World War II is reawakened after the war when her innocent husband is tried for murder; won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award. Joy Kogawa, Obasan (1994), about the relocation of Canadian citizens of Japanese descent to internment camps during World War II; based on the author's own experiences, so technically not a historical novel. Ella Leffland, Rumors of Peace (1979), about a girl growing up in a small California town during World War II, as her neighbors are sent to internment camps. Review at Marginalia Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine (2003), about a Japanese-American family's experiences after Pearl Harbor, when the mother and children are interned in Utah while the father is sent to a camp in New Mexico. Jack Shakely, POWs at Chigger Lake (2010), about an American military officer responsible for opening and managing an internment camp for Italian prisoners of war in rural Oklahoma. Civilian Life During WWII
Kevin Baker, Strivers Row (2006), about Malcolm X as a young man in 1943 Harlem; #3 in the City of Fire trilogy (#1 was set in 1910 and #2 in 1863 New York).Sarah Blake, The Postmistress (2010), about three women during the early years of World War II, two of them in a small town in Massachusetts and one an American reporter in London, whose lives connect and contrast as the reporter strives to convey the reality of the war and the women at home to avoid it. Dennis Bock, The Ash Garden (2001), about the atom bomb and its effect on the lives of three people: a German scientist who helped America develop it, his Jewish Austrian wife, and a Japanese child in Hiroshima. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000), about a Jewish refugee and his American cousin who work in the comic-book business during the World War II years; won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize. John Crowley, The Four Freedoms (2009), about workers in an Oklahoma airplane factory during World War II, building the largest bomber ever built. Maggie Davis, Stage Door Canteen (2003), about hostesses at a New York dance club during World War II. Lander Duncan, Children of Secrets (2010), about a black war hero, his beautiful mixed-race wife, and the violent racial prejudice he returns to at the end of the war; self-published. Tony Earley, The Blue Star (2008), about a teenager in a small North Carolina town who falls in love with a girl obligated to marry her landlord's son, a boy serving in the Navy and stationed at Pearl Harbor on the eve of the attack. New York Times Review by Scott Turow Gloria Goldreich, That Year of Our War (1994), about a Jewish American teenager who goes to live with relatives in New York City after her mother dies while her father is serving in the military. Jack Woodville London, French Letters: Virginia's War (2008), about the small Texas town of Tierra during the World War II year of 1944; self-published. Brief Critique Jack Woodville London, French Letters: Engaged in War (2010), about a young army doctor at the front in Normandy during D-Day; self-published; sequel to French Letters: Virginia's War. Howard Norman, What is Left the Daughter (2010), about a seventeen-year-old Canadian who moves in with his aunt and uncle and falls in love with his cousin, who in turn falls in love with a German student, a romance complicated by World War II. Review or Author Interview Howard Norman The Museum Guard (1998), about a guard in a small museum in Nova Scotia on the eve of World War II who is in love with the caretaker of the local Jewish cemetery. Review at The New York Times Marge Piercy, Gone to Soldiers (1987), about the sacrifices of American women who remained at home during World War II. Don Robertson, The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread (1965), about a nine-year-old Cleveland boy who sets out to visit a friend, towing his sister along in a red wagon, on the day in 1944 when a disastrous gas explosion is about to occur. Elswyth Thane, This Was Tomorrow (1952), about two Virginia families during World War II; #6 in the Women of Williamsburg series; this novel was contemporary at the time it was written, although earlier novels in the series are genuine historical novels. Elswyth Thane, Homing (1957), about two Virginia families during World War II; #7 (and last) in the Women of Williamsburg series; this novel was contemporary at the time it was written, although earlier novels in the series are genuine historical novels. The War's Aftermath
Steve Amick, Nothing But a Smile (2009), a love story about an army illustrator discharged from the service after an injury to his drawing hand who returns to Chicago to discover his buddy's wife has been eking out a living producing pin-up photos for which she uses herself as a model.Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000), a literary novel about an elderly Canadian woman recalling her sister's suicide in 1945, ten years after the end of World War II; it includes a story-within-the-story, the science-fiction novel written by the woman's sister. Calvin Baker, Once Two Heroes (2003), about two heroes of World War II, one black and one white, and the violence they experience in post-war America. Tatiana de Rosnay, Sarah's Key (2007), about a contemporary American journalist who discovers her French husband's family acquired their Paris apartment 60 years earlier during the German occupation when the Jewish family who lived there was forcibly deported. Review at Curled Up With a Good Book Donna Milner, The Promise of Rain (2010), about a Canadian girl born after her father returned from World War II, who struggles to uncover his secrets. Shira Nayman, The Listener (2009), about a psychiatrist in a New York asylum during the years immediately following World War II who studies the damaging effects of the war on the soldiers who fought it. William Styron, Sophie’s Choice (1979), a literary novel about a young man's gradual discovery of the trauma experienced in Nazi Germany by the beautiful Polish woman with whom he is infatuated. Kate Walbert, The Gardens of Kyoto (2001), about a woman remembering her much-admired older cousin, a soldier who died at Iwo Jima. Mysteries
Lauren Belfer, A Fierce Radiance (2010), about a photojournalist who falls in love with a scientist working to develop penicillin in New York, when a murder occurs in the research lab and she sets out to find the killer.
Kathryn Miller Haines, The War Against Miss Winter (2009), about an aspiring actress in New York who takes a part-time job at a seedy detective agency; #3 in the Rosie Winter mystery series. Kathryn Miller Haines, Winter in June (2009), about an aspiring actress in New York who joins a USO troop on its way to the South Pacific and finds herself in the midst of a murder mystery; #3 in the Rosie Winter mystery series.
Joseph Kanon, Los Alamos (1997), a thriller about a murder that occurs amid the clandestine effort to build an atomic bomb in New Mexico during World War II. Michael White, A Brother's Blood (1996), set in the present day, about a woman's disturbing recollections of the 1945 disappearance of a German prisoner of war from a Maine logging camp, after his brother comes looking for information about who murdered him. Top of Page
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