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I’ve read many novels about World War II, but “Star Sand” was unlike any other book I’ve ever read.
Living on the small Japanese island of Hatomo, a 16-year-old girl, Hiromi, is waiting for the war to end. She spent her childhood in America, but her Japanese-born father brought her back home a few years before the war started. They ended up being separated when he was drafted to work in Nagasaki.
Since then, Hiromi has been living in an abandoned house, spending her time collecting star sand, tiny star-shaped fossils, for reasons she doesn’t quite understand. On the island she discovers a cavern by the sea where two men are hiding. One is Japanese, one is American, both are deserters.
Despite being on opposite sides of the war – and not speaking the same language – the men both hope to survive the war’s end and cause no more harm to anyone. They welcome Hiromi into their isolated existence. Speaking both English and Japanese, she is able to help the two men communicate. Bob, the American soldier, is suffering from dysentery and malaria. She steps in as their caretaker, especially after Iwabuchi’s uncle – the only other one who knows of their existence – leaves the island.
Hiromi brings the men food and medicine and keeps their secret from everyone else she encounters on the island. Meanwhile, the war rages on.
When a fourth person learns of the soldiers’ secret, their very lives a threatened.
Hiromi’s story is presented as a diary, one found in 1958 in the cave on Hatoma along with three bodies.
The last 20 percent of the book jumps forward in time to 2011, where a female university student in Japan is doing research for her thesis. She stumbles onto the mystery of the three bodies in the cave and the diary and sets out to discover the truth of what happened on the island.
“Star Sand” is a slim little novel. WWII was such a huge event that shaped so many parts of the world that it’s hard to recall all the little events that made up those years. We think in terms of battles and armies, victories and losses, but less about the regular soldiers who fought. The American soldier was sent overseas to kill or be killed, while the Japanese soldier was schooled in Japanese nationalism and believed in the state above all else. Yet, these two men were able to find common ground living alone in the cave.
The length of the novel did not allow for much character development. Hiromi was fairly three dimensional, but we didn’t learn much about the men’s personalities. The story of their pasts cut off when a confrontation takes place between the soldiers, Hiromi and the mysterious fourth person who learned their secret.
My gripe was with the 2011 section. I wish it had been longer. The student’s journey toward the truth was too quick and easy. It was also written in a journal format, peppered with “likes” and other modern phrasing. That was fine, but I wish that section had been expanded to further show the student’s discovery of the sole survivor of the cave in the present time. I also wish that her encounter with the survivor was longer. I feel as though the brevity of the final part diminished the importance of her discovery about the diary and the cave.
That being said, this was a haunting and thought provoking book, offering a tiny glimpse into a very different side of WWII.
