SOURCE: "Red and Yellow Necks," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4808, May 26, 1995, p. 23.

[In the following review, Henighan discusses characterization and the theme of racism in Snow Falling on Cedars.]

Set in 1954, on an island near Seattle, Snow Falling on Cedars describes the trial of a Japanese-American fisherman accused of murdering a white colleague. When Carl Heine's body is hauled up out of his own net, a wound on his head, combined with circumstantial evidence and racial suspicion, leads to the arrest of his neighbour and boyhood friend Kabuo Miyamoto. The trial's investigation of the tangled relations of the Heines and the Miyamotos reveals the hypocrisies and injustices of an entire era.

During the 1930s, Kabuo's parents, forbidden by law from owing land, sign a contract to buy from the Heines the seven acres on which the Miyamotos cultivate strawberries. The purchase is to be made by instalments...