Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2008 Shirley Temple Dreams Shirley S. Louis Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES SHIRLEY TEMPLE DREAMS By SHIRLEY S. LOUIS (aka NIKKI NOJIMA LOUIS) A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2008 Copyright © 2008 Shirley S. Louis (aka Nikki Nojima Louis) All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation defended on April 9, 2008. _______________________________ Mark Winegardner Directing Dissertation _______________________________ Neil Jumonville Outside Committee Member _______________________________ Robert Olen Butler Committee Member _______________________________ Julianna Baggott Committee Member ________________________________ Christopher Shinn Committee Member Approved: ____________________________________ Stan Gontarski, Director, Graduate Students Department of English The Office of Graduate Studies has ve rified and approved the above na med committee members. ii To all my teachers, from whom I learned more than writing, and to the memory of Denise Levertov, Grace Paley, and Carol Bly iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grateful acknowledgements to members of my Committee—Mark Winegardner, Julianna Baggott, Robert Olen Butler, Christopher Shinn, and Neil Jumonville—and to the other FSU teachers of writing—Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Bob Shacochis, and Virgil Suarez—who have encouraged me in my endeavors and set standards for me of excellence in art, scholarship and humanity. I am indebted to Florida State University for the Kingsbury Fellowship and the Dissertation Research Grant that sped me to the completion of this project. I am grateful to the arts residencies, writers’ conferences, and individuals who offered me fellowships, scholarships, and sanctuary: Ragdale Foundation, Willard R. Espy Literary Foundation, Island Institute, Mary Anderson Arts Center, Fine Arts Work Center Writers Conference, Wesleyan Summer Writers’ Conference, Vermont College Postgraduate Summer Writers’ Conference, David Guterson Fiction Award, Seattle Arts Commission, Anne Powell of Tallahassee, Jane Stuppin of San Francisco and Sebastopol, and Martha Brice of Seattle. Three of the stories in Shirley Temple Dreams are published under the name Nikki Nojima Louis: “Glory” in Rosebud (winner, Ursula K. LeGuin Fiction Contest), “Good- bye, Gorilla” in The Indiana Review (nominated for a Pushcart Prize), and “Hidden Idaho” in the forthcoming issue of Inkwell. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract vi 1. GLORY 1 2. IN A GARDEN IN HIROSHIMA 7 3. DAYS OF SPACIOUS DREAMS 12 4. PEACH GIRL 31 5. SHIRLEY TEMPLE DREAMS I. The Next Best Thing 48 II. Harmony 69 III. In the Magic Valley 80 IV. One Fine Day 90 6. GRACE IN THE MORNING 92 7. STICKS AND STONE 107 8. GOOD-BYE, GORILLA 110 9. AWAKE IN THE DARK 134 10. SMOKE 150 11. HIDDEN IDAHO 166 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 177 v ABSTRACT Shirley Temple Dreams is a collection of linked stories about Japanese Americans before, during, and after World War II, the times ranging from the turn of the century to the postwar fifties. Eleven stories are structured into three parts: stories that are situated in Japan; stories in American internment camps; and stories of postwar diaspora and return. The collection opens with a story about a writer who realizes the centrality of stories in her life, and it closes with a story about a man who learns to share his stories. These stories are about passages—of time and place; of one generation that strides into the future and another that searches the past; of the move from foreign soil to the fields and forests of the western United States; of settlement, displacement, and resettlement. The stories are set against the backdrop of social trauma, but they are foremost about people—characters in trouble, man-made and self-made—and how they cope, survive, or fail. I have brought to these stories my interest in Japanese culture, literature, and folk lore as well as American popular culture. The tension between the two sides of the hyphenated identity, Japanese-American, is a major presence. Inclusion vs. exclusion, the group vs. the individual, duty vs. freedom are classical themes now seen through the lens of an “other.” vi GLORY Tatami mats whirl over the woman writer’s head, whipping through clouds of dust, then resettle on the floor. Her chair and writing desk hang, bat-like, from the ceiling. Books fly across the room, their pages flapping like wings of gulls. When the whirling stops, the woman writer stands in the middle of the three-mat room she has rented and surveys each corner. The room sits over a barbershop in Tokyo’s declining pleasure district. The woman writer has not left it for three days. It is a room in which she waits for a lover who does not appear, a room in which she works on a new story for which she has missed one, then two deadlines, a room in which she has picked at solitary meals brought to her by the owner of the noodle shop next door, the trays placed discreetly outside the door. She has rented this shabby room over the barbershop to escape the young women who cluster outside her house, wait for her in the rain, stop her on the streets. The room is located near the fourth-rate Kabuki theatre in which her lover is an apprentice performer. The woman writer knows that her lover is greedy and ambitious and has found a new patron. She knows that he is one of hundreds of young men who flock to Tokyo from the provinces with only their sulky good looks and firm bodies, and that he is uncomplicated and mercenary. Yet, she waits for him and she writes. She has left the sliding door open and sits on the floor. She listens to the lash of the barber’s razor against his leather strap, the murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps. She knows the firm walk belongs to a customer and that he is wearing Western-style shoes. Only a man who can afford to be waited on moves with such assurance. Perhaps he is European, even an American. Foreign ships have been docking at Tokyo Bay for months. Sailors and officers cram into rickshaws and carriages to throng to this ancient district famous for its geishas and printmakers, its teahouses and puppet theaters. The days of the floating world of 1 pleasure are nearly gone; two decades later, the district will emerge as the neon world of postwar Tokyo. But it is 1927 now, and the woman writer waits. She listens to the muffled sounds of the barber’s straw sandals and knows that he scurries after an ever-dwindling clientele. “Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.” Only the old-fashioned cash register he has inherited from his father rings with confidence. “Your change, sir. An honor to serve you.” The customer opens the door, the tiny brass bell hanging over it rings, the barber’s high-pitched voice trails after him. “Come again, won’t you? Any time, sir. Always at your service.” The woman writer knows the barber stands in the doorway. He’ll watch the customer cross the street, then call after him. “Be seeing you soon, I’m sure!” The door closes; the bell sounds its back-and-forth note. The barber swoops the shade down over the door. He hums as he sweeps the floor, hums as he cleans his instruments. Then, the ping! of the cash register, and she knows he will take the money out of the drawer. He’ll go now, she thinks. She knows the barber will walk a few steps to the noodle shop. The elderly proprietress will greet him as he climbs onto a stool at the counter. She will bring him a bowl of steaming noodles, which he will deftly slurp into his mouth with black lacquered chopsticks. When he finishes, a sigh of pleasure will escape from his lips, then a sustained belch. The proprietress will shout her thanks as he places his money on the counter. She will shuffle around the counter and make short, profuse bows as the barber goes out the door. “Thanks! See you next time!” When the barber is on the street, he will stroll to the Toyo Silent Cinema and flirt with the ticket girl. 2 It is October and the light quickly fades. A cold wind sweeps through the streets and enters the room through invisible cracks. The woman writer scoops charcoal into the brazier, lighting it with a sheaf of papers, discards of her day’s work. She huddles on the floor, wrapping her kimono sleeves around her. She has worn the same crescent- patterned garment for three sleepless days and nights. Its flowing sleeves and wide sash are more flattering to her thickening body than the tight bodices of Western clothing. She has had an entire winter wardrobe of silk and brocade kimonos made for her lover’s pleasure, for the games in which they replicate stories of passion and yearning seen nightly at the Kabuki theatre nearby. The kimonos wait in a cedar chest in the corner, waiting. Strands of hair have loosened and fall across her face. Impatiently, she gathers them, jabs a tortoise-shell comb into her scalp. Howls in pain. The wind lifts and slaps the shutters against the house. A branch tears off a tree, falls across the terrace. The barber has forgotten to tie back the awning. It tears free and flaps aimlessly, like a wounded bird. The woman writer walks to her desk, sits in her high-backed chair, toes curled over its rung.