Norman Cox

Shizuka Norman Cox First edition

Shizukatells of four generations of Japanese and Japanese-Americans and their lives inthe great Central Valley of California.¿A chance meeting between Martin, a middle-aged Caucasian, and Pat, ayoung Japanese-American woman who knows little about the life of her pioneerancestors, leads by mutual impulse into the wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas to a greatly revered but little-known, century-oldgathering place for early Japanese settlers, Pat's ancestors.¿ This is Shizuka. Austere and imposing, Shizuka ("aplace of tranquility") comes to life with the discovery of diaries, written inJapanese and dating from the 1890s.¿ Theydescribe a tight knit, dynamic family with close ties to early Yankee andMexican settlers, yet the cryptic entries can do no more than whet theimagination.¿ It is only the unfolding story ofKazuo Kono, the family's patriarch, that tells the true tale of Shizuka and ofthose who built it against great odds and were able, from time to time, to findtranquility there.¿ Kazuo's origins inMeiji Restoration Japan, his immigration eastward to America,his establishing a family with Motome, his brilliant and passionate wife, andhis agriculturally important contributions to his adopted country give warmthand texture to a virtually forgotten era and its obscure heroes.