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jacobballew
Originally, I started reading Brandon Shimoda’s The Grave on the Wall (City Lights, 2019) probably this past summer, but I stalled out of it for some reason. I don’t know why, because I started it up this past month and flew through it. To back up a bit: let’s give you some context not only about the book but also about City Lights publisher and bookstore. City Lights recently had some financial turbulence due to COVID. Go here for more information about it:
The GoFundMe campaign was ultimately successful, but with lockdown measures extending well into August, we should continue to support our independent bookstores and publishers. What little I can do is to review more of their titles. The other thing that came up was that I’m part of a cool little “academic support” social group with a wonderful poet/ scholar/friend, who had reminded me of Brandon Shimoda’s work. While she works on an article, I promised her that I would read and review the title, as I had originally intended to do anyway.
So, let’s get back to Brandon Shimoda’s Grave on the Wall (City Lights, 2019), which is Shimoda’s first foray into creative nonfiction, after a number of critically acclaimed poetry collection. The official site gives us a very pithy description here: “The Grave on the Wall is a memoir and a book of mourning, a grandson's attempt to reconcile his own uncontested citizenship with his grandfather's lifelong struggle. Award-winning poet Brandon Shimoda has crafted a lyrical portrait of his paternal grandfather, Midori Shimoda, whose life—child migrant, talented photographer, suspected enemy alien and spy, desert wanderer, American citizen—mirrors the arc of Japanese America in the twentieth century. In a series of pilgrimages, Shimoda records the search to find his grandfather, and unfolds, in the process, a moving elegy on memory and forgetting.”
Let’s be clear: though billed as a kind of memoir, it’s really something else. My aforementioned poet/scholar/friend though it might be billed as a new genre, something hybrid, and I’d agree: there’s certainly travelogue, biography (via narrativizing Shimoda’s life), archival research (looking into special collections), historical information (Japanese American and Japanese transnational history concerning things like the atomic bomb and picture brides), autographical perspectives (via Shimoda), amongst other types of writings and texts. While the core of Shimoda’s work is undoubtedly the desire to engage in a “part recovery” of Midori’s life, there is so much more about the work. Perhaps the most wondrous thing about the work is that the reader is brought into the process of discovery and of frustration that befalls the individual who dares to research so deeply into one’s family history. One of the most interesting moments is when Shimoda is convinced he has found Midori’s first wife; they have a phone conversation but this individual never admits if she is in fact who Shimoda thinks she is. There’s another moment when a photograph is incorrectly identified in an archive, and Shimoda must correct the inaccuracy. Then there’s the intriguing experience of visiting Missoula, Montana, where many Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. My description and overview cannot do the work justice; there is so much texture and so much intricacy to this work. When you read toward the ending of Grave on the Wall the many writers that inspired Shimoda, you’re not surprised to see so many Asian American women writers, including but not limited to Don Mee Choi, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Karen Tei Yamashita, Maxine Hong Kingston. Shimoda’s work certainly resonates alongside the experimental, multi-genre works of these writers. A truly immersive experience.
Buy the Book Here:
