OPINION
Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
August 21, 2017
Volume 27 Number 16
August 21, 2017
ISSN: 1094-9453
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MY TURN
n Dmae Roberts
Jamie Ford’s Love and
Other Consolation Prizes
amie Ford has done it again. With his new
book, Love and Other Consolation Prizes, he’s
written yet another powerful novel. In his
previous two books, New York Times bestsellers
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Songs of
Willow Frost, he deftly wrote of heartbreak, love,
and family from an Asian- American male
perspective set in Seattle amid backdrops of notable
historical times, including the depression era and
the Japanese-American internment during World
War II.
In the new book, scheduled for release on
September 12, Ford weaves an epic story about a
12-year-old biracial orphan boy who travels from
China aboard a ship full of children being trafficked
at the turn of the century. While many of the kids
end up in prostitution and servitude, Ernest Young
is raffled off at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific
Exposition in Seattle. The winning ticket goes to a
benevolent madam in a high-end brothel in
Seattle’s Tenderloin district that actually treated
women who worked there with compassion. Ernest
becomes a house servant and soon falls in love with
two girls his age — one Asian, one white — and they
essentially grow up together.
Love and Other Consolation Prizes alternates
young Ernest’s narrative in 1909 with an older
Ernest in 1962 who has a wife and two grown
daughters. Ford rather cleverly juxtaposes the 1909
expo with the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, also
known as the Seattle World’s Fair, that led to the
construction of the now-famous Space Needle and
Alweg monorail. Both stories unravel the mystery of
Ernest and his fate without revealing until the end
if Ernest actually picks one of his childhood crushes.
When I talked with Jamie Ford in 2013, he’d told
me he was conducting research for a book set during
the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, which
always fascinated him. Ford said while people are
familiar with the 1962 World’s Fair, the 1909 one
had strange “ethnographic displays” that were
“basically human zoos” in which indigenous people
were put on display.
“I thought that was just so bizarre it was worth
exploring,” Ford said. “I kept tripping upon a
mention of a boy being raffled off on September 15,
1909, which was Washington Children’s Day. I
wanted to find out what happened to this kid.” Ford
never solved the mystery, so he created a character
named Ernest Young who became “a blank canvas”
to construct a 1909 story during the height of
Seattle’s red-light district and curiously during the
women’s suffrage movement in Seattle, also
featured in the book.
J
In addition to the futuristic aspects of the Space
Needle, the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair also had its
own oddities that surprised Ford during his
research. He said the Century 21 Expo had an
adults-only corner Ford described as a miniature
Las Vegas “where space-age topless models were
painted green, blue, or violet.” Besides a “bizarre
adults-only puppet show,” Ford discovered a section
of the fair that allowed people to rent cameras to
photograph barely dressed showgirls through
dressing-room windows. Amid the colorful
backdrops, the reader also gains insight into
Seattle’s Asian-American history.
Ford said he harbors hope that someone who
reads Love and Other Consolation Prizes will know
something about the identity of the real orphan boy
who was raffled off in 1909. He has reason to hope.
In Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, there’s a
frontispiece with a photo of an unidentified
Japanese girl that originally came from the
National Archives. At a reading in Louisville,
Kentucky, a woman came up to Ford and said, “This
is my auntie.” She put Ford in touch with the now
grown woman who lives near Sacramento.
“Whenever I do events in that area, she comes out
and signs books with me and it’s wonderful.” Ford
admits that the identity of the 1909 boy, however, is
an even bigger mystery.
While preparing for the tour for Love and Other
Consolation Prizes, Ford is also trying to keep his
growing excitement in check for the film adaption of
his debut novel. He’s written a second draft of the
screenplay for Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and
Sweet and has been spending more time in Los
Angeles working with the director and an executive
producer whose name “most people would
recognize,” but it’s all “still secret.”
“I did talk to one of the producers [recently], who
is a wonderful man based in New York,” said Ford.
“He said it gently and nicely, but said you’ve got to
stop saying this is a long shot — we’re shooting this
film.” Ford also mentioned that he was told to block
out dates for next year and that it’s “looking pretty
good right now.” I couldn’t be happier for him.
There’s certainly a dearth of love stories involving
Asian-American men and women in film. I think
one centering on the Japanese-American intern-
ment is not only timely, but also needed.
In the meantime, Ford fans have a chance to get
their hearts broken by and put back together again
in a most satisfying way while learning something
new about Pacific Northwest history in Love and
Other Consolation Prizes.
To learn more, visit <www.jamieford.com>.
Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.
