Shout-out to my friend Isabelle for lending me this book! We have started an informal book club, meaning the two of us lend each other our favorite books and discuss them at lunch. Anyway, I probably would not have read past this book's detailed and dull beginning if she had not recommended it so strongly. And I am so glad that I did! Yes, the beginning is dull - a description of a murder trial, which I had no emotional connection to at first - but after that things pick up nicely. We learn that the trial takes place on an American fishing island not long after World War II, and that a Japanese man has been accused of murdering a man of German descent. Both are American veterans, but the islanders don't see it that way because of the accused man's race. This would be a fascinating story in itself, but Guterson weaves a billion other story threads around the central cord of the trial. These thr...