Whilst not necessarily moving the story forward valuable insights in to island life and the minds of it’s residents were gained during these rambles and I adored them. I particularly liked the sections where Gutterson would deviate and focus in on the small details – the Strawberry Festival, the newspaper headlines, the buying of supplies for the snow storm. Instead it ambles it’s way along and is told mostly in flashbacks, from childhood, the war and the events leading up to Carl Heine’s death. Don’t be expecting pace, it’s not a thriller. Well the next couple of days, it is 400 pages long after all.

That being decided I, like the residents of San Piedro during the snow storm, settled down for the night. I proceeded to read the first few chapters and realised I hadn’t read any of it before. I flipped to the blurb and thought ‘hmm maybe I don’t remember it quite as well as I thought’. Yep, I was convinced I had already read this book when passed it by a family member. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbours watched. For on San Piedro, memories grow as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries – memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and a Japanese girl memories of land desired, paid for, and lost.

In the course of his trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man’s guilt. In 1954 a fisherman is found dead in the nets of his boat, and a local Japanese-American man is charged with his murder. I review a book I was convinced I had already read, Snow Falling on Cedars Snow Falling – the blurb

Snow falling on cedars book review