THE BOOK
Two Faces
by Nina Wolpe and Gordon Hideaki Nagai
Paperback, 320 pages, $17.95 US
Hardcover, 332 pages, $24.95 US
Kindle ebook, $9.95
Publisher: Mission Point Press
Publication date: August 15, 2023
Language: English
Paperback ISBN: 978-1958363751
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1958363744
Nina Wolpe and Gordon Nagai were close school friends when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, a friendship they maintained throughout the war and thereafter. They have produced a unique book of personal narrative around this historical event. Their own memoirs about the war and its impact on their personal lives intertwine with their frequent letters back and forth. It is a highly engaging and uplifting work about a cross-racial friendship at a time of global conflict when such friendships were frowned upon and/or prohibited. Gordon Nagai’s narrative provides especially substantive and unique details about internment life, much of which has never been told. This engaging story fills a deep gap in the books written about this dark chapter in American history.
—David de Lorenzo, Director, Special Collections, University of Oregon
Two Faces is the inspiring story based on the real-life friendship of two friends who live through the dark days of World War II. Their relationship stays strong even as school kids bully Gordon after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.
Gordon’s family is forced to move thousands of miles from their peaceful family farm in California into a hot dusty, internment camp surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Meanwhile, Nina’s father enlists in the Army Air Corps and is shipped off to England. Nina and her mom move in with her grandparents, and Nina considers this a happy adventure, although she misses her dog.
Nina’s and Gordon remain close by writing letters, keeping each other updated on their daily lives. Gordon writes about the armed guards and the fact that his family—just like all the other Japanese American families—are considered enemy aliens. Nina keeps Gordon posted on news of the war and fun times with her family.
As the war nears its end, Gordon returns home with renewed confidence and no longer afraid of bullies. But suddenly, Nina suffers a terrible upset of her own.
While their lives are dramatically different during World War II because of racial prejudice, their friendship holds together, in part, through the presence and power of their mothers.
Against the backdrop of one of this nation’s greatest Civil Rights violations emerges a story of love, friendship, patience, patriotism, sacrifice and pure childhood innocence… along with a painful, too-soon, coming of age. The book is powerfully written, yet never preachy, and remains wholly authentic throughout to both its young adolescent viewpoint and the misgivings, mischief and misadventures of growing up. Some of Gordon’s lighter memories strongly reminded me of my own kids’ experiences in suburban Connecticut in the 1960s… proving that, given half a chance, “kids will be kids” anywhere. Even behind the barbed wire of a prison camp. And Nina’s insights concerning social justice as well as her beloved Daddy’s going off to lead a whole new life while leaving her and her mother to pick up the pieces of his inability to cope with war and its aftermath are absolutely stunning.
—Olivia Taylor-Young, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute,
University of Oregon, creative writing facilitator