Clark and Division

Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki’s older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family’s reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train.

Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose’s death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life. Her instinct tells her there is much more to the story, and she knows she is the only person who could ever learn the truth.

Inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history.

This discussion guide was shared and sponsored in partnership with Soho Press

Book club questions for Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

How do the opportunities and choices available to the Ito family—in terms of home, employment, education, and community—change after the bombing of Pearl Harbor? How do euphemisms such as “internment” and “relocation” diminish the harsh reality of incarceration?

Besides Aki, which character do you relate to most? In what ways do you think their decisions and actions during this tumultuous time resonate with your own approach and experiences?

Aki almost blacks out on the train ride to Chicago. What do you make of her sickness? Were you fearful when Aki heard Rose’s voice? How does forced displacement and relocation affect the body, memory, and identity?

In chapter 9, Aki translates kurou as “a guttural moaning, a piercing pain throughout your bones.” How does Aki cope with the grief of her sister’s death? How do her parents internalize their pain? How do the physical items Rose left behind take on a new life?

Aki seems driven to protect her sister’s legacy. Why do you think she takes the investigation of Rose’s death into her own hands?

How is Aki watched and evaluated differently—at the police station, outside the chocolate factory, inside Art’s truck—by nisei and hakujin?

Aki often describes herself as a lesser version of Rose. How does Aki’s definition of herself in relation to her sister change over the course of the novel?

What do you make of the library scene when the professor belittles Phillis? What type of connection is the author making between the discrimination against Black and Japanese American citizens?

Why does Aki initially feel guilty about her relationship with Art? Were you surprised that she did not tell him about her efforts to find out what happened to her sister?

How is police sergeant Graves responsible for Rose’s death and continued abuse against women? What is the relationship between the Chicago Japanese American community and local law enforcement? Do you think trust can exist between the police and an ethnic, racial, or religious minority Community?

In chapter six, Aki’s mother tells her to, “Never shame us. All we have is our reputations.” How does Keizo take advantage of the silence and sacrifices demanded of Japanese American women and girls?

Why do you think the author chose Clark and Division as the novel’s title?

Clark and Division Book Club Questions PDF

Click here for a printable PDF of the Clark and Division discussion questions

Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award

Winner of The Lefty Award for Best Historical Novel

A New York Times Best Mystery Novel of the Year

A Parade Magazine 101 Best Mystery Books of All Time

A Washington Post Best Mystery and Thriller of the Year

“Searing . . . This is as much a crime novel as it is a family and societal tragedy, filtering one of the cruelest examples of American prejudice through the prism of one young woman determined to assert her independence, whatever the cost.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“Just as only James Ellroy could have written the Los Angeles Quartet and only Walter Mosley could have crafted Black Angelenos’ experiences into the Easy Rawlins mysteries, crime novelist and research maven Naomi Hirahara was destined to write Clark and Division . . . The vibrant characters, the history and the aura of determined optimism that permeate the novel make it feel like the beginning of a saga not unlike Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs mysteries.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Hirahara has drawn a devastating picture of a family in crisis and a nation’s monumental blunder.”

—The Washington Post

“Engrossing . . . The best historical fiction shows how events affected the people who lived that era. Hirahara’s Clark and Division ranks high.”

—The South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“A novel Naomi Hirahara was destined to write . . . Hirahara gives us a rich and vibrant portrayal of Nisei life in multicultural Chicago: the nightclubs, the hoodlums, the young people looking for connection, looking for their place in a world that up until previously had not merely excluded them but incarcerated them.”

—Los Angeles Review of Books

“This WWII-set story of a woman trying to uncover the truth about her sister’s death against the backdrop of the brutal internment of Japanese-Americans is simply Hirahara’s most deeply felt and satisfying book to date.”

—Parade Magazine

“Aki is an engaging and complex character . . . An impressive historical novel, but it’s also sadly timely, as we see the old baseless bigotry awakened again among the fearful and the violent.”

—Tampa Bay Times

“This absorbing historical fiction, by the Edgar-winning author of the excellent Mas Arai series, vividly brings to life the experience of being Japanese American during World War II — a shameful chapter of casual racism, fear and distrust that continues to echo today.”

—The Seattle Times