I Hotel

Listening becomes almost visual in these accounts of Asian-Americans living in 1960s and '70s San Francisco. The 10 related novellas that comprise this work touch on art, politics, activism, and deep Asian familial bonds and traditions. Casting a variety of dynamic performers imbues each novella with a distinct essence and power, resulting in a listening experience that is always fresh. The characters are diverse, and the performances offer an astonishing spectrum of accents and expression. The patchwork quilt of historical experience ultimately evolves into depictions of today's vibrant Asian-American culture. A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from May 3, 2010
In Yamashita's latest, she strings together a stunningly complete vision of San Francisco's Asian American community in the late 1960s and early '70s, using the titular inn as a meeting point for ten loosely-connected novellas, each covering a single year. Focusing on the struggle for equality and peace as it involved this particular community, Yamashita's work also incorporates a broad view of the Asian and Asian American experiences, from Japanese internment camps to the Marcos dictatorship. Yamashita accomplishes a dynamic feat of mimesis by throwing together achingly personal stories of lovers, old men, and orphaned children; able synopses of historical events and social upheaval; and public figures like Lenin and Malcolm X (Yamashita's opening line: "So I'm Water Cronkite, dig?"). Despite its experimental and fictionalized nature, the novel reads more like a patchwork oral history, determined to relate the facts of its setting and, more importantly, the feelings of it; with varied commingling of voices and formats (stream-of-consciousness, slangy first person, quotes, dossiers, academic papers, even written-out choreography), the narrative reads like a collection of primary sources. Though it isn't for everyone, this powerful, deeply felt, and impeccably researched fiction is irresistibly evocative and overwhelming in every sense. 30 b&w photos and illus.