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The Silk Box, a Love Story
A LOVE STORY THAT BREAKS THE BARRIER OF CULTURE "Mi-Chan" Mihoko Namura took the last train to Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945. In a flash of brilliant light, the atomic bomb devastated her city and forever changed her life. Five years later, at a US Air Base, the genteel, vulnerable Mi-Chan meets a handsome Black American, "Sonny" Charles Drake, Jr.-a hip, brash American who instantly steals her heart. Ultimately the two are forced to part ways, and their love story unfolds across continents as each one undergoes tremendous tribulations before they can at last be reunited. This is an interracial love story about hope-about overcoming odds and challenging taboos. It features a rich tapestry of characters set against a backdrop of turbulent and life-changing world history, and the story will hold special meaning for modern-day readers as our world undergoes its own global turning point. The Silk Box is a poignant tale of love and courage that will unite all hearts.
264 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 12, 2012
This book covers so many topics/struggles/issues, and it’s all wrapped up in a love story…that seems unlikely…preposterous. At times, I doubted that the hero and heroine would ever get together. They endure so much in so many different ways.
Hiroshima. Self-pity. Survival. Mi-Chan and a friend are badly wounded, innocent bystanders as a weapon of mass destruction lands close to their university. Both women sustain severe scarring to their faces, one becomes bitter and isolates herself on an island prison of her own making. One goes on to live and take the blessings life gives her.
“You create heaven or hell with your own attitude.”
Racial Integration. The Jim Crow South. The Korean War. The story goes back and forth between Mi-Chan and Sonny, an American in the Air Force. Sonny is stationed in Japan, part of a newly integrated unit. Things are going okay, but some of the whites attitudes may change when one of their own dies in his plane. His colonel also wants him to box for him, causing Sonny to remember a photographer and a watermelon…I am not explaining… and seriously question the motives of the white people around him.
Sonny also has flashbacks to growing up in the Jim Crow South where it was okay for a black man to work for a white and the white man not to pay him his due…where men dressed in white robes in a futile attempt to hide their foul misdeeds. There’s also the street life of pimps and whores and boxing.
And there’s war, death, bomb dropping, and a look into the mind of a soldier. Who does he have to visualize in order to rouse the required anger to kill? There’s losing comrades. There’s saving lives.
Japanese culture, submissiveness, Chinese/Japanese relations. Mi-Chan has been taught to be submissive. She’s sold to the only man willing to marry her, a Chinese man. The Chinese brutally takes his revenge on her for what the Japanese did to his people and his family. This also brings up people’s inability to forgive…how it ruins them.
True Love. They see each other twice on the base. She haunts his mind with visions of her red kimono. He haunts her with his pearly white teeth and the rose he gave her. I normally don’t go for the love at first sight stuff, but considering what all these two go through-plane crashes, war, fights, boat capsizings, robbery, brutality, lies-it’s no wonder they continue to think of the one bright spot in their lives-each other. At times, it doesn’t seem the two will ever be together. But true love surpasses all, even the color barrier, even war, even family determined to keep them apart.
Hiroshima. Self-pity. Survival. Mi-Chan and a friend are badly wounded, innocent bystanders as a weapon of mass destruction lands close to their university. Both women sustain severe scarring to their faces, one becomes bitter and isolates herself on an island prison of her own making. One goes on to live and take the blessings life gives her.
“You create heaven or hell with your own attitude.”
Racial Integration. The Jim Crow South. The Korean War. The story goes back and forth between Mi-Chan and Sonny, an American in the Air Force. Sonny is stationed in Japan, part of a newly integrated unit. Things are going okay, but some of the whites attitudes may change when one of their own dies in his plane. His colonel also wants him to box for him, causing Sonny to remember a photographer and a watermelon…I am not explaining… and seriously question the motives of the white people around him.
Sonny also has flashbacks to growing up in the Jim Crow South where it was okay for a black man to work for a white and the white man not to pay him his due…where men dressed in white robes in a futile attempt to hide their foul misdeeds. There’s also the street life of pimps and whores and boxing.
And there’s war, death, bomb dropping, and a look into the mind of a soldier. Who does he have to visualize in order to rouse the required anger to kill? There’s losing comrades. There’s saving lives.
Japanese culture, submissiveness, Chinese/Japanese relations. Mi-Chan has been taught to be submissive. She’s sold to the only man willing to marry her, a Chinese man. The Chinese brutally takes his revenge on her for what the Japanese did to his people and his family. This also brings up people’s inability to forgive…how it ruins them.
True Love. They see each other twice on the base. She haunts his mind with visions of her red kimono. He haunts her with his pearly white teeth and the rose he gave her. I normally don’t go for the love at first sight stuff, but considering what all these two go through-plane crashes, war, fights, boat capsizings, robbery, brutality, lies-it’s no wonder they continue to think of the one bright spot in their lives-each other. At times, it doesn’t seem the two will ever be together. But true love surpasses all, even the color barrier, even war, even family determined to keep them apart.
September 4, 2025
WOW! What a story!! I never expected this little book to be so powerful when I bought it years ago from a thrift store.
However, over time, that book had wormed its way into a dark recess in my over-loaded bookcase--until last week.
Something brought it to my attention. So I dug it out and began to read, and I couldn't put it down.
The cover of the book suggests love, but the story is about war and how it affects people. Yet, it's still a happy story!
However, over time, that book had wormed its way into a dark recess in my over-loaded bookcase--until last week.
Something brought it to my attention. So I dug it out and began to read, and I couldn't put it down.
The cover of the book suggests love, but the story is about war and how it affects people. Yet, it's still a happy story!
June 24, 2012
I just finished reading my copy of “The Silk Box” by author Shirley Mihoko Hairston and I must say it was a much better read then I expected it to be when I initially requested it. From the very beginning “The Silk Box” was an easy story to “get in to” and I immediately began to empathize with “Mi-Chan” Mihoko Namura, one of the book’s main characters. In reading Hairston’s dedication to her mother, Mihoko “Mi-Chan” Drake as well as to her father, Charles “Sonny” Drake I couldn’t help but notice that these were also the names of “The Silk Box’s” title characters. Being intrigued by this aspect I wondered how much of the tale I was about to embark on would be fictional and how much would be fact...
The premise of “The Silk Box” is this: Mi-Chan (Mihoko Namura) is a young Japanese girl who has just returned by train to the city of Hiroshima on the infamous morning of August 6, 1945. Mi-Chan is a docile and obedient child, yet for some reason on that particular morning rather than disembarking at Hiroshima station as she should have, she opted to stay on the train as it continued its journey to the military base. Mi-Chan was not alone as she traveled from home to school but, her best friend and companion, Junko was the feeling ill and decided to get off the train so she could rest at school rather than accompanying Mi-Chan any further.
A short while later the train stopped at Hirohito Station; and it is here that Mi-Chan finally stepped off the train; a decision that ultimately saved her life. It was a beautiful day, although exceptionally hot, and Mi-Chan began her walk to the bay. The stillness of the day was broken only by the sound of a propeller plane and as Mi-Chan looked skyward she was surprised to see that it was American. Moments later her life was irrevocably and forever altered.
“The Silk Box” continues and we follow along through Mi-Chan’s life; we learn about some of the horrors that the atomic bomb survivors lived through and we meet “Sonny” (Charles Drake, Jr.) who turns out to be the love of Mi-Chan’s life. Unfortunately life itself is never simple and these star-crossed lovers will wait years before they are finally able to be together.
I will not share any more of the tale found within “The Silk Box” as it is the author’s to share with you however, should you decide to read it, you will not be disappointed. Hairston writes with poignancy and eloquence and even though parts of the story were shocking and horrific they were always represented with dignity and class.
(Reviewed in association with Rebecca's Reads).
The premise of “The Silk Box” is this: Mi-Chan (Mihoko Namura) is a young Japanese girl who has just returned by train to the city of Hiroshima on the infamous morning of August 6, 1945. Mi-Chan is a docile and obedient child, yet for some reason on that particular morning rather than disembarking at Hiroshima station as she should have, she opted to stay on the train as it continued its journey to the military base. Mi-Chan was not alone as she traveled from home to school but, her best friend and companion, Junko was the feeling ill and decided to get off the train so she could rest at school rather than accompanying Mi-Chan any further.
A short while later the train stopped at Hirohito Station; and it is here that Mi-Chan finally stepped off the train; a decision that ultimately saved her life. It was a beautiful day, although exceptionally hot, and Mi-Chan began her walk to the bay. The stillness of the day was broken only by the sound of a propeller plane and as Mi-Chan looked skyward she was surprised to see that it was American. Moments later her life was irrevocably and forever altered.
“The Silk Box” continues and we follow along through Mi-Chan’s life; we learn about some of the horrors that the atomic bomb survivors lived through and we meet “Sonny” (Charles Drake, Jr.) who turns out to be the love of Mi-Chan’s life. Unfortunately life itself is never simple and these star-crossed lovers will wait years before they are finally able to be together.
I will not share any more of the tale found within “The Silk Box” as it is the author’s to share with you however, should you decide to read it, you will not be disappointed. Hairston writes with poignancy and eloquence and even though parts of the story were shocking and horrific they were always represented with dignity and class.
(Reviewed in association with Rebecca's Reads).
February 8, 2012
It is hard to believe that Mihoko Hairston’s account of her mother and father’s lives and romance is contained in just these 256 pages. In this historical fiction novel, readers will hear individual accounts of the terrible bombing of Hiroshima, of the first years of American occupation in Japan, of the air force’s flights into Korea, of the Japanese invasion of China, and more. The subject of racism in the U.S. is described within American cities and on military bases; cultural aspects of imperial Japan are mentioned, such as the place of geisha in society. Distrust between races and cultures is evident in many of the book’s characters; yet, the characters are very likable. The author’s talent at dialogue really drew me into the story; she successfully switched between Southern American slang to respect-filled Japanese to crude military jargon. “Mi-Chan”, a young Japanese girl, uses her own experiences and the wisdom found in her Zen Koans book, a treasure in her “silk box”, to carry on, though her life has been altered and nearly destroyed by the American bomb. A Zen teaching from which she finds peace: “While you are living, know you are dying.” She intends to live in the present and find joy in whatever ways – big or small - that she can.
Her willingness to see beyond the barriers of culture and race, beyond hatred and unfairness, help her to lead a fulfilling life despite tragedy. Adults will enjoy reading about the heartbreaks and joys of Mi-Chan’s and “Sonny’s” lives.
Her willingness to see beyond the barriers of culture and race, beyond hatred and unfairness, help her to lead a fulfilling life despite tragedy. Adults will enjoy reading about the heartbreaks and joys of Mi-Chan’s and “Sonny’s” lives.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews