"Bachi" is the avenging spirit of retribution: "what goes around comes around." Naomi Hirahara's first novel, Summer of the Big Bachi will be discussed at the JAMsj/Yu-Ai Kai Book Club session on December 3rd. We willl meet at the newly re-opened JAMsj facility,  located at 535 North Fifth Street, in San Jose's Japantown.

This mystery novel is a departure from the usual nonfiction titles selected by the book club and will stay with you for weeks after finishing the book. The Japanese American community of Altadena in Southern California is brought completely to life, with the most ordinary, unheroic people showing the depths of themselves. Protagonist Mas Arai is just another Japanese American gardener -- his lawn mower blade clean and sharp, his truck carefully tuned -- but his own life has gone to seed.

While Mas was building a life on the edges of the American dream, he was also keeping his powerful secrets about three friends from long ago, how two lives entwined, and about what really happened when the bomb fell on Hiroshima in August 1945.

The book club meets the first Friday of every other month and is always open to new members. Selections are chosen collaboratively at the end of each meeting and align with the JAMsj mission -- the celebration of Japanese American art, history, and culture. Books are readily available at San Jose public libraries. If you have questions, please contact Aggie Idemoto at  (408) 268-4440 or aggie@jamsj.org