No-No Boy

A quick disclaimer: many of the 1-star reviews on this novel come from amazon merging the reviews of the University of Washington Press edition and Penguin edition, now that Penguin\’s version of the novel will no longer be offered. Most of these 1-star reviews object to Penguin\’s publishing controversy, and not the content of the novel. edit 2: it seems amazon has separated the reviews again, and made the penguin version available for purchase. In short, this version bypasses the copyright claim made by Shawn Wong and the Okada Estate, and represents unethical business practices. Buy the University of Washington Press edition instead. We as readers are lucky to have this novel, which almost vanished from history in the 70s had it not been for Shawn Wong and the Okada Estate. There are no other novels that display with such acuity the experience of a Japanese American struggling to find a sense of belonging in post-war America.

No-No Boy is a novel written by John Okada in 1957. No-No Boy is about Ichiro Okada, a Seattle-born man of Japanese descendent, returning to Seattle, his hometown, after being imprisoned during World War II for not denouncing the emperor of Japan and refusing to report for U.S. military duty. I learned about this book because of some recent controversy over the re-publication of this book by Penguin Books. Penguin claims the work was not properly copyrighted and is public domain property. Since 1976, University of Washington Press had been publishing No-No Boy (and sending royalties to the Okada family). I bought and read the UW Press edition. Ichiro is shunned by the Japanese Americans that served in the military and saw him as a traitor to the United States. He is shunned by Whites because he looked Japanese. He was stuck in a no-mans land of being seen as neither Japanese nor American. While this book is fiction, the emotions and situations were real. The Japanese Americans returning to their homes after the WWII internment was extremely difficult, and for those that were no-no boys, their experiences had to have been heart-wrenching. This book captures powerful emotions. What makes this story remarkable is that it was written at a time when no one talked about the Japanese American experience and how it affected them. Okada does a wonderful job of presenting the nearly hopeless, desperate dilemma faced by Ichiro. Okadas writing style is almost poetic; it has rhythm. Okada does an admirable job of describing life in post-war Seattle, identifying streets and landmarks by name. One curious technical error is a reference to watching the local Seattle baseball team on television. At the time, televisions were available to the public but prohibitively expensive for households, especially Japanese returning from internment camps where everything had been taken from them. There was also no televised Seattle (Rainiers) baseball in the years immediately after the Japanese return to the coast (about 1947). The Seattle Rainiers didnt televise their games until 1956. It took me a few days of research to check this out including watching a 90-minute documentary on the history of the Seattle Rainiers. I rate this book 5 stars because it evokes the emotional strain Japanese Americans must have felt after the war and because it was a landmark publication for its time.

I believe this is the first Asian American novel I ever read years ago. It is heartfelt, but perhaps not in the style of today. In important ways, the novel\’s themes may not resonate with current audiences–it doesn\’t quite fit into the progressive or conservative narratives. EDIT: I wrote my review to counter the one star reviews for this book. I was unaware of the publication issues of the Penguin Classics version but just read the NY Times article–I agree wholeheartedly that it is reprehensible that the Okada estate has been left out of royalties for the author\’s work. It is unfortunate that the book is somehow in the public domain. I agree with other commenters: until this issue is resolved, purchase the University of Washington version.

I made the mistake of buying this, not knowing that Penguin has disregarded the authors familys copyright. If you want this book, please buy the University of Washington Press publication.

It is outrageous that Penguin Books is profiting and ignoring the Okada estates claim. Do not buy this version.

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