Otsuka and Her Other Works 2

ulie Otsuka: I wrote the first chapter again as a standalone story from the mother’s point of view and then I wrote the second chapter not as chapter two but just as another short story, and I happened to be telling it from the point of view of the girl on the train as they are being taken away to the camp. And it was when I finished writing that second story that I realized that those two chapters put together might add up to the beginnings of a novel. I think if I had sat down at my desk one day just to write a book about the internment camps I probably would have chosen to tell it all from the point of view of the mother. The structure—again, it kind of evolved accidentally. Once I realized I had these two pieces pulled from two different characters’ points of view, it made sense to write a third piece or now a third chapter from a different character’s point of view and it also—I think for me as a writer it just kept the material fresher; it was more interesting; I really—I liked going into different characters’ heads. It just kind of gave me a new burst of energy each time I began a new chapter from a different character’s point of view. That chapter when they return, ”In a Stranger’s Backyard,” is told from the point of view of both the girl and the boy together, which is now a voice that I’ve used since—in my second novel, “The Buddha in the Attic,” I use the collective “we” voice also—and again, I don’t know why I make my choices but it kind of just felt right. Somehow that voice I feel like opened things up for me as a writer. And it gave me kind of a burst of energy and there’s almost a joyousness that I felt for the children—they’re back, they’re kind of elated to be back in the world or they think they’re back but I think in many ways they’ll never be completely back. Initially they’re just—they’re so happy to be home and yet some things have changed and some things have not changed. I mean I think it’s a very difficult experience to reenter the world. Actually, I remember my mother telling me that when she came back from what we Japanese Americans call camp that nobody had asked her where she had been and her classmates just said, “Oh, hi, Alice,” as if she’d never been away at all. So it’s a very—I think it’s an odd and just very confusing experience to come back. So again it just felt right to use the girl and the boy together to tell that chapter of the story.