“A manifestly timely work that addresses historical trauma, the fragile nature of identity, the folds of history, and memory’s fissures…Its quiet urgency speaks to us all.” —Michael Palmer, author of The Laughter of the Sphinx
“Kimiko Guthrie has written a breezy, accessible novel that manages to defy multiple genres. Block Seventeen is part love story, part supernatural ghost tale, part family history, and part political thriller, with nothing less than the Japanese internment in America during World War Two—and today’s treatment of immigrants—coursing through its haunted, beating heart.” —Susan Jane Gilman, New York Times bestselling author
“A layered mystery shrouded in grief, paranoia, and intergenerational trauma, set in the Bay Area but located in the half-hidden histories of many of its residents who lived through the Japanese American internment camps of the not-so-distant past.” —Thi Bui, author of The Best We Could Do
“A moving, compelling novel about intergenerational trauma and a woman’s process of integrating the various known and mysterious threads of her identity…Guthrie’s book is poetically written and psychologically astute. I loved it.” —Anita Barrows, PhD, poet, psychologist, and author of We Are the Hunger
“In Block Seventeen, Kimiko Guthrie blends horrors both supernatural and all too real to create a moving portrait of family, love, and the myriad ways trauma can haunt us across generations. This is a beautiful book, one that will linger in the reader’s heart long after its final pages.” —Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
“Lightning has struck twice with Block Seventeen. With this profound and devastating look at generational trauma, Kimiko Guthrie has not only penned a stunning debut, but a vital work of speculative fiction.” —Cadwell Turnbull, author of The Lesson
“Great crimes are never forgotten, and the World War II internment of the Japanese Americans continues to cast a long shadow. Block Seventeen traces parallels between past and present with a story that is sobering, hopeful, and always beautifully written.” —David C. Fathi, director, ACLU National Prison Project
“Block Seventeen grabbed me from the first page and held me in delightful suspension till the last. A young Japanese American woman’s current life collides with the unresolved ancestral pain of her foremothers in a swirl of mystery, current-day politics, profound love, and near-madness—all couched in gorgeous prose. Guthrie is an outstanding novelist that I hope we will hear from again soon.” —Sarah Shourd, author of A Sliver of Light and The Box
“Compelling…A twenty-first-century ghost story offers chills in this…promising debut.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The reader is taken back and forth in time in an absorbing…narrative that is purposeful in its examination of how we seem to be reliving past horrors, speeding back down the same road, this time on the high-octane fuel of technology. This promising and totally immersive debut, rich in Japanese American culture, is as devastating and evocative as Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine, with a Hitchcockian overlay of suspense.” —Booklist
