Author discusses first novel, writing habits
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“I wanted to write a love story,” author Jamie Ford said in a telephone interview about his 2009 debut novel, “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.”
A favorite love story of Ford’s is “Casablanca.”
Compared with movies and novels today, it’s understated, he said. Today’s movies have shock value, but in the ‘40s, there were lots of things movies couldn’t do, so moviemakers “created magic within those limitations.”
As an author, Ford came up with a way to make things more complicated in his love story: he wrote about a Chinese boy and a Japanese girl in 1940s Seattle and “created a bunch of conflicts.” Although the story was originally a 30-page short story, Ford turned it into a novel.
The story is about Henry Lee, a Chinese-American man in his late 50s. He is a widower, who would like to open communications with his son. Then the new owner of the Panama Hotel, a fixture in Japantown in the 1940s, discovers trunks, suitcases and other valuables stored for Japanese Americans who were sent to internment in World War II. When she opens a parasol, Henry is sure it belonged to his friend and first love Keiko Okabe, a Japanese-American girl, who was Henry’s “scholarshipping” classmate at Rainier School. Henry’s father wanted to make sure he got an American education.
Jazz clubs are woven through the story.
Ford said his grandfather talked about the clubs where Ella Fitzgerald and Cab Calloway played in Seattle.
“There were 38 jazz clubs on South Jackson Street,” Ford said, and now there are none.
Ford lives in Great Falls, although he grew up in southern Oregon and then moved to Seattle, where his Chinese grandparents lived.
According to Ford’s website, many people wonder how a Chinese-American has a name like Ford.
Ford’s great-grandfather’s name was Min Chung, and he immigrated to the United States in 1865 and changed his name. Ford found out about his great-grandfather through a probate attorney. Chung was one of seven children, and two younger siblings were adopted out and moved away. When one sibling died after never having married or having children, the probate attorney did all the genealogical research.
An “I am Chinese” button Ford’s father wore as a youngster shows up on Henry’s chest. In the story, Henry is not allowed to speak Cantonese at home.
Ford’s father had the opposite problem; he was not allowed to speak English at home and attended Chinese school after regular school so he would have a city Cantonese accent instead of a country accent.
“When I lived in Oregon, my best friend was Japanese. His dad (Lawson Inada) spent time in two internment camps and had by this time became Oregon’s poet laureate,” Ford said, although Ford didn’t realize that at the time.
In fact, Inada read an early draft of Ford’s book.
As far as writing habits, “I want to say that I write every day, but sometimes life gets in the way,” Ford said.
Ideally, he writes 1,000 to 1,500 words a day, from 8 a.m. to noon in his home office and then edits that day’s work.
“At 3 p.m. the school bus brings kids home,” he said, and that quickly ends his writing day.
“The main thing I have to tell (beginning writers) is there is a healthy margin for improvement,” Ford said.
Just as musicians don’t begin playing Mozart, writers need to hone their craft.
“If you enjoy the process of writing, you’ll be fine,” he explained. “If you like the idea of being a writer, that won’t get it done.”
To be accurate and detailed, Ford researches for his stories in every way imaginable. The Internet is good for certain things, such as finding books out of print.
“I usually start with maps from the time period,” he said.
Maps were especially important with “Hotel,” Ford explained, since the present-day interstate highway cuts through where the Panama Hotel was located. Other research sites were an internment camp, the Wing Luke Museum of Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, and Densho, the Japanese American Legacy Project.
“I like the research part. I could almost do that to the exclusion of writing,” he confessed.
Most writers procrastinate, and Ford said he procrastinates by saying “yes” to speaking gigs. Since “Hotel” has been translated into 35 languages, he also answers questions for the foreign media and writes guest essays.
He loves football and TV and “can always get sucked into a good book or go hike around Glacier.”
“I read everything,” Ford said.
He divides his reading into three categories. For research purposes, he is usually reading weird, out-of-print books. For blurbing, he reads manuscripts from other authors. If he enjoys their work, Ford posts a comment.
His recreational reading right now is for a men’s book club. The group is reading “A Dance With Dragons,” by George R. R. Martin.
