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Soldiers in Hiding
It’s Tokyo, 1941. Teddy Maki and Jimmy Yakamoto are Japanese-American friends and jazz musicians playing Tokyo’s lively nightclub scene. Stranded in Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Teddy and Jimmy are drafted into the Japanese army and sent to fight against American troops in the Philippines. Their perilous attempts to remain neutral in a conflict where their loyalties are deeply divided are shattered when Jimmy is killed by the commanding officer for refusing to shoot an American prisoner. The deed then falls to Teddy. Thirty years later, Teddy is married to Jimmy’s widow, father to his son, a star on Japanese TV � and still wrestling with the guilt over Jimmy's death.
Winner of the 1987 PEN/Faulkner Award for Best American Fiction, Soldiers in Hiding is a haunting portrayal of war’s lingering emotional burdens. This revised edition features a new preface by the author and an introduction by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.
Winner of the 1987 PEN/Faulkner Award for Best American Fiction, Soldiers in Hiding is a haunting portrayal of war’s lingering emotional burdens. This revised edition features a new preface by the author and an introduction by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.
205 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 5, 2021
An excellent story narrated by Teddy Maki an American-Japanese jazz musician who was a member of a small jazz band including Jimmy Yamamoto and their manager Ike. The band went to Japan for several gigs just before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor to start WWII. This stranded the band in Japan and eventually required them to join the Japanese military. The story tells of their experiences in the war and then about the events that followed in Japan. This is a Pen/Faulkner Award winner, of which I have been reading, and is one of the better of those I've read so far.
February 22, 2020
only read this book because i found it on my grandfather's shelf, but im still not sure how i feel about it.
all this book did was that it mixed the snippets of "This Is Us" and a Murakami-esque landscape in my head; a very awkward collision of the American and the Japanese worlds.
all this book did was that it mixed the snippets of "This Is Us" and a Murakami-esque landscape in my head; a very awkward collision of the American and the Japanese worlds.
June 7, 2011
Overview
Soldiers in hiding, by Richard Wiley, is a book set during the time period of World War II in Japan. The main character, Teddy Maki, narrates the book and tells of his experiences and feelings of the war. This is a unique perspective, as Teddy was a Japanese-American who was born in America, but was stranded in Japan by the Pearl Harbor incident while traveling with his band. His loyalties were mixed, with his American nationality and his Japanese heritage. Teddy joins the Japanese army at the urging of his peers, and witnesses his two best friends die. One of those men, Jimmy Yamamoto, had married the girl of Teddy’s dreams, named Kazuko, and Teddy stepped in as her husband when Jimmy died. Their child, Milo, served as inspiration for Teddy throughout the hard times of war, such as frequent bombings of Tokyo, where they lived. Teddy battles himself in his loyalties to the war and cultures, as well as his love life. This book shows a different look on WWII, from the perspective of a Japanese-American with mixed feelings.
Audience
This book would be good for people who enjoy a mix of war, romance, and history. It has a little of everything in it, and it is quite interesting in the perspective that it provides of the war and its events.
Reading
This book is not a hard read, but it has some mature portions, there are sex references and some minor cursing. There are also some gruesome parts about the war, with several people dying.
Recommendation
This book would be good for you if you want a unique perspective on WWII, that is unseen in other books because it shows a little of both sides. It is pretty good, but can be a little slow at times. I would give it 3.5 stars out of 5.
Soldiers in hiding, by Richard Wiley, is a book set during the time period of World War II in Japan. The main character, Teddy Maki, narrates the book and tells of his experiences and feelings of the war. This is a unique perspective, as Teddy was a Japanese-American who was born in America, but was stranded in Japan by the Pearl Harbor incident while traveling with his band. His loyalties were mixed, with his American nationality and his Japanese heritage. Teddy joins the Japanese army at the urging of his peers, and witnesses his two best friends die. One of those men, Jimmy Yamamoto, had married the girl of Teddy’s dreams, named Kazuko, and Teddy stepped in as her husband when Jimmy died. Their child, Milo, served as inspiration for Teddy throughout the hard times of war, such as frequent bombings of Tokyo, where they lived. Teddy battles himself in his loyalties to the war and cultures, as well as his love life. This book shows a different look on WWII, from the perspective of a Japanese-American with mixed feelings.
Audience
This book would be good for people who enjoy a mix of war, romance, and history. It has a little of everything in it, and it is quite interesting in the perspective that it provides of the war and its events.
Reading
This book is not a hard read, but it has some mature portions, there are sex references and some minor cursing. There are also some gruesome parts about the war, with several people dying.
Recommendation
This book would be good for you if you want a unique perspective on WWII, that is unseen in other books because it shows a little of both sides. It is pretty good, but can be a little slow at times. I would give it 3.5 stars out of 5.
July 14, 2019
My eldest daughter found a bin of books in my storage space that I had saved and put aside from the days following y mothers passing.
These were books that I had peered at on our bookshelves for my entire youth, so they were saved for sentimental reasons.
Soldiers in Hiding was in this bin. I don't recall why I had put it aside and I had a vague recollection of reading it in my youth, but couldn't recall a plot or characters.
Mom had covered the book jacket in thick cellophane, signaling to me that it was a keeper.
As I dove in nothing seemed familiar and I started to doubt that I had actually read this book. By the time I finished I knew this was my first time with it.
While I found the premise intriguing, my old-man impatience had me doing the fast-forward, speed reading zippidy-do-da though the paragraphs. As the gray hairs are taking over my body, my tolerance for overly descriptive inner monologues in writing has diminished. So sad. Or maybe I've always been an impatient reader.
These were books that I had peered at on our bookshelves for my entire youth, so they were saved for sentimental reasons.
Soldiers in Hiding was in this bin. I don't recall why I had put it aside and I had a vague recollection of reading it in my youth, but couldn't recall a plot or characters.
Mom had covered the book jacket in thick cellophane, signaling to me that it was a keeper.
As I dove in nothing seemed familiar and I started to doubt that I had actually read this book. By the time I finished I knew this was my first time with it.
While I found the premise intriguing, my old-man impatience had me doing the fast-forward, speed reading zippidy-do-da though the paragraphs. As the gray hairs are taking over my body, my tolerance for overly descriptive inner monologues in writing has diminished. So sad. Or maybe I've always been an impatient reader.
July 30, 2018
Really intriguing and feels very real....it's amazing that an American author can have such a firm grasp on Japanese culture and lifestyle, what's picked up on, brought to attention, details of thought process, the structure of every day and etc. It's important that this was written by an American~ it shows understanding and compassion. At first, I disliked the narrator, yet learning about him as the story unfolds was eye-opening. Much like understanding that there were two sides in the war.
July 15, 2023
Unique plot. Eccentric characters. Intriguing setting in WWII and post-war Japan.
June 7, 2020
Two young Americans of Japanese heritage, Jimmy and Teddy, travel to Japan in 1941 to pursue their careers as jazz musicians. They get sucked into war between the US and Japan, never to be the same. I believe the expression is "carried along by events beyond their control". It is a story told from several different perspectives, one of which is the story of the Japanese people, in particular those living in
Tokyo during the war--a point of view that I have to admit I was not familiar with prior to reading this.
I have made a habit of reading aware winners on a regular basis; this novel won the PEN/Faulkner in 1987. I find that most of these aware winners are at least decent and occasionally I come across one that is a real winner for me and often it is by an author I have never read. Soldiers in Hiding falls into the latter category. I have read some very good novels in 2018, but this has been the best. I had to read the entire novel just to determine how I truly felt about some of the characters. My opinion in some cases was changing up to the last few pages. Some readers have described this novel as slow. Not for me. Richard Wiley is now someone who I am going to need to try again.
Tokyo during the war--a point of view that I have to admit I was not familiar with prior to reading this.
I have made a habit of reading aware winners on a regular basis; this novel won the PEN/Faulkner in 1987. I find that most of these aware winners are at least decent and occasionally I come across one that is a real winner for me and often it is by an author I have never read. Soldiers in Hiding falls into the latter category. I have read some very good novels in 2018, but this has been the best. I had to read the entire novel just to determine how I truly felt about some of the characters. My opinion in some cases was changing up to the last few pages. Some readers have described this novel as slow. Not for me. Richard Wiley is now someone who I am going to need to try again.
October 29, 2011
The second novel by Wiley that I've read this month, both set in Japan. This one is set in the years during and surrounding WWII. A Japanese American goes to Japan on the eve of WWII and is unable to leave when war breaks up--even gets forced into the army and serves in the Philippines. This has the same spare prose as Commodore Perry's Minstrel Show, but not the light tough that that one had. Like it, a shockingly violent scene is at the heart of the story, but it occurs much earlier here and shapes the rest of the story. This is definitely a writer who deserves more attention than he has received.
June 8, 2009
Quite an excellent book about a man coming to grips with a life he's had very little control over and cared very little about. I am facinated with how effortlessly the author narrates the viewpoint of both American and Japanese culture.
The book begins a little slower than I'd like but I was anticipating a well written story (by the reviews I'd read) and I was not disappointed.
The book begins a little slower than I'd like but I was anticipating a well written story (by the reviews I'd read) and I was not disappointed.
May 23, 2008
Going to read this over the summer.
August 28, 2008
It's been a long while since I read this book but have to give props to local Tacoma authors. One of two autographed first editions in my library! Check it out
October 21, 2019
Excellent.
March 19, 2012
Extraordinary novel. Extraordinarily well-written.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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