Two Faces - Nina Wolpe and Gordon Nagai

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Book description:

Beginning with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Two Faces tells the gripping tale of a cross-racial friendship that endured the incarceration of Japanese immigrants during World War II. The novel is inspired by the real-life tale of the two authors—a young Gordon and Nina who first met at a rural California school. Their fifth-grade schoolmates are shaken by news of the attack and begin to taunt and bully Gordon, prompting Nina to stand up for him.

Gordon’s parents are established farmers in the area. His father, a Japanese immigrant, is married to an American-born daughter of Japanese parents. Following Pearl Harbor, his family is forcibly evacuated and imprisoned in an internment camp in Colorado. His story encompasses the upheaval caused by the evacuation, the humiliation of being identified as enemy aliens, and the weight of life ringed by barbed-wire fences and guard towers.

Nina’s story is typical of the disrupted life visited upon millions of families because of the war. Her mother is a teacher in a local elementary school. Her father enlists in the US Army Air Corps and is sent to training camps across the country before being stationed in England.

The measures her mother and grandparents take keep the family together and safe. Nina and her mom travel by train to be near her father during his training. When he departs for England, they return home to live out the war with Nina’s grandpop.

Nina and Gordon’s story is ultimately about friendship, with each standing up for the other during hard times. They remain close through letter writing and reunite near the end of the war.

But just as Gordon begins to thrive in school, Nina suffers a life-changing upheaval of her own.

• Publisher : Mission Point Press (August 15, 2022)
• ISBN : Hardcover: 978-1-958363-74-4
• ISBN : Softcover: 978-1-958363-75-1
  
• Retail price: $24.95 (hardcover); $17.95 (softcover)
• 6 x 9 inches
• 330 pages