R&B Press is pleased to debut the Photographic Memories: A Story of Shinjitsu website, and evidence that awareness has hit its stride. Reviewers have offered moving responses to having read this biography of Midori Shimoda and the testimonials include excerpts from a recent conversation with Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump.
“This is a compelling, fascinating biography that tells the story of Midori Shimoda who was not only a photographer, but a really good photographer.” Winston offers about the man whose liberty was taken from him for being Japanese in the wake of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the evacuation of 120,000 Japanese from west coast states to detention centers across the country. Winston continued, “He was pursuing a profession that was about the worst he could have, under the circumstances: his story is explained in a lovely way.”
“Dad’s unlikely journey included: a three-week long, trans-Pacific, ocean crossing without family or friends at the age of nine; a perilous evacuation from California immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; refuge with a Mormon family in Utah; arrests for suspected espionage; and federal internment he had so earnestly sought to avoid,” notes Midori’s daughter and co-author Risa Shimoda. “Amazingly,” she continues, “his path intersected with an extraordinary assortment of individuals, including Grace Kelly, Fay Wray, J. Edgar Hoover, and Betty Hutton.”
Co-author Bob Fleshner, loves Winston’s final thoughts. “He offered this: ‘I read a good bit. In fact, I’m always reading a number of books at the same time and never get through somewhere between a third and half of them. I’ll put down books as soon as I get bored, but I didn’t think about putting this to the side until I’d finished it. It’s a first-class book that belongs in bookstores everywhere.’ “
