Review: Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer

Title: Camp Nine
Author: Vivienne Schiffer
Pages: 198
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Release Date: October 10th, 2011
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Source: Review copy provided by publisher

If any of you are currently looking for the next selection for your book club, then please please please look into Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer. This absolutely stunning novel receives a (very rare) 5 out of 5 from me and is easily one of my favorite books this year! The writing is fantastic, and there are many controversial topics that would really engage a literary group.

These are the parts of my life: before Camp Nine and after Camp Nine, and those brief, unexpected days when Camp Nine was everything to me.

Camp Nine tells the story of Cecilia "Chess" Morton and her coming of age in the Arkansas Delta during World War II. Rook, Arkansas is an extremely rural farming town filled with prejudice, bigotry, and a strong division between the haves and the have-nots. While life is far from ideal, the appearance of an internment camp for Japanese Americans forced to leave their California homes quickly changes the town. When her mother Carrie takes a job inside the camp, Chess finds herself becoming involved in the lives of the prisoners and one family in particular, the Matsuis. Over the course of two years, Chess sees not only the triumphs and tragedies of a group of people who struggle daily with questions of sacrifice, loyalty, family, and tradition but also the unexpected dark secrets that lie within her own family's past.

The topic of the Japanese internment camps created by FDR during World War II is a part of US history that is often overlooked. I am so glad that Ms. Schiffer wrote such a compelling book that bring this subject into the forefront. The basic idea itself is just so unbelievable, and I can't even imagine the outcry if something like that were to have been suggested regarding American Muslims after 9/11. Based on the Rohwer Relocation Center, Camp Nine seems very well researched and translates into a very modern literary read.

I know that Camp Nine was something that should never have been. It destroyed lives and separated families...But the experience was mine, too. On a deeper lever than I had ever understood, Camp Nine has defined my life.

Once I started this book, I didn't want to stop. The writing of this Southern author and Arkansas native is magical. The setting came alive as I read, and I felt whatever emotion that the author conjures throughout the narrative. The subject matter first caught my attention, but it was the perfect amount of action and conflict that kept me reading. Little one-off lines of foreshadowing built a lot of excitement and increased my need to reach the novel's conclusion. While this story appears to be about a group of prisoners, Schiffer tackles the horrific and muddled situation through the eyes of a pre-teen girl. This is very much Chess' story. 

Again, I can't tell you enough about the competent and mesmerizing book that is Camp Nine. I definitely learned something about a topic that I wasn't too familiar with beforehand. I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to read Vivienne Schiffer's unforgettable debut. 

About Vivienne Schiffer

Vivienne Schiffer grew up in the Arkansas Delta town of Rohwer, site of the Rohwer Relocation Center, on which Camp Nine is based. She is an attorney and has practiced law for twenty-eight years in Houston, where she lives with her husband Paul and their family. Schiffer is currently at work on her second novel.