Jamie Ford, author of Hotel
On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, returns to his Seattle roots in his
second novel Songs of Willow Frost. First we meet William Eng, a lovable Chinese
American orphan who lives at the Sacred Heart Orphanage. All of the boy orphans are given the same
birthday when they arrive at Sacred Heart- September 28th:
coronation date of the honorable Pope Leo XII.
On this day, all of the boys are shepherded downtown to see a motion picture
as a special birthday treat. This year
(1934) the boys are taken to a showing of Cimarron. William hunkers down in his seat to share his
popcorn and Orange Crush with his best friend when something unthinkable
happens. During the Follies reel, the
audience meets a new actress with a sweet, sad voice: Willow Frost. William is stunned. Though he can’t explain how, he knows that
the woman on the screen is in fact his mother whom he hasn’t seen in five
years. Shaken, William tries to ply
information out of the sisters at Sacred Heart but to no avail. He know his Ah-ma wouldn’t have abandoned him and believes that if he can just
get out of the orphanage long enough to see her in person at an upcoming show,
she’d take him home again.
Life in the orphanage is not easy. But William knows that he has it a lot better
than many orphans- some roam the streets begging, others are sent off to labor
farms or to work in factories. And while
he feels the strong pull to run away from the orphanage in order to find his
mother, he knows that if he is caught, he probably won’t be sent anywhere as
nice as Sacred Heart. Bolstered by his
best friend, the adorable but blind Charlotte, the two hatch a plan to escape
from the orphanage and trek to the 5th Avenue Theatre to see
Willow.
Charlotte and William manage to sneak out of Sacred Heart
and even see Willow’s show. Afterwards,
they wait with a line of other admirers outside the Stage Door. William gets Willows autograph and calls her Ah-ma and when the actress begins to cry
William knows that he’s finally found his mother. But she is whisked off in a taxi and William
is left sitting in the alley for hours.
One of the performers takes pity on William and Charlotte and gives them
backstage tickets for the next performance.
There, William gets a chance to speak with Willow before her next
performance. Unfortunately, Sister
Briganti arrives to take the two orphans back to Sacred Heart before William
can get all of the answers about his past.
Will William find Willow again? Will he ever find out how he wound up at
Sacred Heart? But most importantly, does
Willow still want her little boy? Songs of Willow Frost is an interesting
tale about the bond of parent and child, duty to society and the history of
early motion pictures. While it does not
combine the number of issues as did Ford’s first novel Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Songs of
Willow Frost is not a Sophomore Slump of a book. Ford brings new life to a new era in Seattle
and the reader is more than happy to go along for the ride.
Check out Songs of Willow Frost @ the library!
Check out Songs of Willow Frost @ the library!
