A lush, exquisitely rendered meditation on war, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment tells the story of several families, American and Japanese, their loves and infidelities, their dreams and losses, and how they are all connected by one of the most devastating acts of war in human history.
In this evocative and thrilling epic novel, fifteen-year-old Yoshi Kobayashi, child of Japan’s New Empire, daughter of an ardent expansionist and a mother with a haunting past, is on her way home on a March night when American bombers shower her city with napalm—an attack that leaves one hundred thousand dead within hours and half the city in ashen ruins. In the days that follow, Yoshi’s old life will blur beyond recognition, leading her to a new world marked by destruction and shaped by those considered the enemy: Cam, a downed bomber pilot taken prisoner by the Imperial Japanese Army; Anton, a gifted architect who helped modernize Tokyo’s prewar skyline but is now charged with destroying it; and Billy, an Occupation soldier who arrives in the blackened city with a dark secret of his own. Directly or indirectly, each will shape Yoshi’s journey as she seeks safety, love, and redemption.
PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK :
Twitter Hashtag: #HeavenlyPunishmentTour
Publication Date: March 11, 2013
Published by: W.W. Norton & Company
Hardcover; 384p
ISBN-10: 039307157X
Author: Jennifer Cody Epstein
Website: http://www.jennifercodyepstein.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR :
I am an unrepentant book addict and the author of The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, as well as the international bestseller The Painter from Shanghai. I have also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Nation (Thailand), Self and Mademoiselle magazines, and the NBC and HBO networks, working in Kyoto, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok as well as Washington D.C. and New York. I’ve taught at Columbia University in New York and Doshisha University in Kyoto, and have an MFA from Columbia, a Masters of International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a BA in Asian Studies/English from Amherst College. I currently live in Brooklyn, NY with my husband, filmmaker Michael Epstein, my two amazing daughters and an exceptionally needy Springer Spaniel.
INTERVIEW WITH MS EPSTEIN!!!
We are pleased to be able to bring you this personal interview today with Jennifer Cody Epstein. Thanks for taking time out from your very busy schedule to be with us, Jennifer! Let's start out...
1) Tell us something about yourself,
please. How do most people describe you?
Hmmm….honestly?
I’d say it depends on the person. My friends might describe me as thoughtful,
chatty, self-deprecating, bookish, in love with shoes and always up for a night
out. My husband would say I’m terrible in the morning (which I guess goes with
the up-for-a-night-out thing), not the world’s best housekeeper (ha!) but a
good best friend and mother. My dog (whom I consider an honorary person) would
say I’m awesome.
2) Briefly, from where did the idea for your
novel germinate?
Ever since
living in Japan (which I did for five years) I’ve been fascinated by the
US/Japan dynamic and our complicated but incredibly rich history together. I
knew I wanted to write about it, but I didn’t really know where to start until
my husband—who is a filmmaker--came back from an interview he’d just conducted
with a military lawyer on the topic of war crimes. He told me that the Tokyo
firebombing is widely considered to fall into that category today and asked me
what I knew about it—which (to my chagrin), I realized was very little. So I
began to research the event, and was floored by both how profoundly destructive
it was and how little anyone seems to know about it in general.
3) Who first told you that you could write
well, and how did it affect you?
Miss Markey, my
creative writing teacher in third grade, was the first one to really encourage
me with my writing, though my sixth-grade teacher Mr. Kahane was also
super-supportive. He helped me win the coveted “Author’s Corner” spot in our
middle school, where I had a short story I’d written—I think it was about a
magic swingset—posted on the wall by the principle’s office. Along with an
appropriately broody-looking author’s photo.
4) Which contemporary authors do you most
admire?
That’s such a
hard question, since I admire so many of them. I’d have to say Jennifer Egan is
somewhere at the top, however—I find the craft of her sentences truly
breathtaking. I love Sarah Waters’ work as well—The Night Watch was one of my favorite books in recent years. And
Toni Morrison has written two of my favorite books ever: The Bluest Eye and Beloved. I
also really admire the works of Joanna Hershon and Hillary Jordan, both of whom
I am lucky enough to share work with.
5) Which are your favorite classical authors?
If you can
consider Nabakov classical, I’d say he tops my list—he’s got an ability to both
innovate in his storytelling and manipulate the English language in a way no
other author I know can do (and English wasn't even his first language!). Lewis
Carroll is also a longstanding favorite, as is Edith Wharton and Henry James.
6) Jump into any book~which character would
you be?
Another tricky
question! I’d say at the moment, though, I’d opt for Ursula Todd in Kate
Atkinson’s most recent novel Life After
Life. She does die several grisly deaths in the book, but the fact that she
gets to keep coming back and try living again over and over gives her
character’s storyline extra bang-for-the-buck. Plus, she kills Hitler.
7) If you could have 5 historical people to
dinner, who would they be? What would you
have to eat?
Pan Yuliang, the
prostitute-turned-painter who became one of China’s early pioneers of
Western-style painting (and the subject of my first novel) would be one of them
for sure. Anais Nin would be another. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald seem like
they’d be interesting and entertaining additions. And lastly, since we’d need
another guy, James Doolittle—the dashing aviation legend who led the 1943
Doolittle Raid to Japan (which I explore in The
Gods of Heavenly Punishment). To eat
we’d probably have French food, including really pungent cheese, foie gras and some super-decadent
dessert.
8) Read any good books in the past 6 months?
Life After Life was, as I said, really wonderful and a
very unique reading experience. I also loved Joanna Hershon’s A Dual Inheritance, which I read in the
early draft stages but got to read as a finished novel this winter. I loved Butterfly’s Child by Angela
Davis-Gardner, and Debra Dean’s The
Mirrored World, and also really enjoyed Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove and Heidi
Julavits’ The Vanishers.
9) Favorite two tv shows:
A month ago I
(like almost everyone else I know) would have said Game of Thrones was one, but
it’s gotten so violent that I haven’t been able to bring myself to turn it on
for the last couple of episodes! I’m going into Tyrion Lannister/Peter Dinkel
withdrawal, however, so I think I may have to just suck it up and go back to it
one of these days. The other show that’s become something of an obsession for
my family is Once Upon A Time, which follows
a small New England town that happens to be full of fairy tale characters. I
love it because it’s engaging for all of us without being too “adult” for my
kids, who are 9 and 12.
10) Favorite movie of all time:
La Dolce Vita.
11) Are you working on a new book?
I’m actually
researching two (!) One is set in California and Germany, the other in
Southeast Asia. I haven’t figured out which one I want to write yet—or maybe
which one I want to write first. They’re very different thematically, though
both will have historical elements to them.
12) Anything else I forgot to ask you?
I don’t think
so….but thanks for some fun and thought-provoking questions!
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