Repentance

by Andrew Lam

Overview

Sometimes the line that separates coward from hero is not easy to spot.

When that line is crossed, to what lengths will a remorseful man go to set things right?

That’s a question that had never crossed Daniel Tokunaga’s mind until the U.S. government started calling, wanting to know more about his father’s service with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II. Something happened while his father was fighting the Germans in France, and no one is sure exactly what.

At least, no one who’s still alive and willing to give details.

Wanting answers, Daniel upends his life to find out what occurred on a small, obscure hilltop half a world away, in a quest for the truth that threatens his marriage, his sanity, and the love of everyone he holds dear. In unraveling his family’s catastrophic past, the only thing for certain is that nothing—his life, career, and family—can ever be the same again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781946501127
Publisher:	Tiny Fox Press LLC
Publication date:	05/01/2019
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	763,937
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.68(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

“Suspenseful, touching, and beautifully written.” — Margaret George, New York Times best-selling author of Elizabeth I and Helen of Troy

“A gorgeous, emotional book. An important, and timely, American story.” — Karin Tanabe, author of The Diplomat’s Daughter

"In Repentance, Andrew Lam poignantly explores one man's search into his father's past during WWII, only to discover just as much about himself along the way. What follows is an intimate, revealing, wide-reaching story of family secrets, sacrifice, love and honor during a turbulent time in Japanese-American history.” — Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden and The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

"Gripping, engrossing, and poignant. Repentance reveals the nature of combat and its affect on men long after the guns fall silent." — Susumu Ito, 442nd Regimental Combat Team veteran and recipient of the Bronze Star and Congressional Gold Medal

"Readers will be moved by Daniel’s plight as he desperately tries to understand a father for whom he still harbors profound resentment. A poignant, nuanced tale of familial pain and renewal." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2019-02-01
A Japanese-American doctor discovers his estranged father's role in World War II—and a long-guarded family secret.

Daniel Tokunaga is the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at a major hospital in Philadelphia, known for his talent and ambition. He receives an unexpected call from his father, Ray—they haven't spoken in years—informing him that his mother, Keiko, was in a car accident and that she's been rushed to a Los Angeles hospital. Daniel jumps on a plane to California, and after he arrives, he's startled by a series of peculiar revelations. It turns out that his father was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary valor in France while serving with the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit of Japanese-American soldiers in the Second World War. Daniel also learns that the U.S. Department of Defense has been calling his father repeatedly to discuss that medal—but that he's been mysteriously reluctant to talk about it. Lam (Two Sons of China, 2016, etc.) artfully unravels the Tokunaga family's skein of secrets, and in the process, he reveals the many difficulties that Japanese-Americans faced during the war. For example, Keiko spent three years at a detainment camp while her husband risked his life for his country; at another point, Daniel's father objects to the girl whom he wants to marry, partly because her father was born in Japan and fought on that country's side. Lam's prose is always clear, and at its best, it achieves poetically elegiac notes: "The house was a time capsule. A grave, he thought….Inside, the distant pulsation of the cicadas felt far away. Inside, time had died—life gone elsewhere. Even the past had passed on." Readers will be moved by Daniel's plight as he desperately tries to understand a father for whom he still harbors profound resentment.

A poignant, nuanced tale of familial pain and renewal.

Kirkus Reviews