J-Sei’s New Book Club:
American Harvest by Marie Mutsuki Mockett
Join us for a Summer Book Club excursion through American Harvest, the latest epic journey by author Marie Mutsuki Mockett.
We will welcome back author Marie Mutsuki Mockett for a live Zoom visit in the Fall to discuss her latest book, AMERICAN HARVEST. We hosted Marie in 2016 to mark the publication of Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye, her personal pilgrimage through the temples and rituals of Japan following the devastating tragedy in Tohoku in 2011. This time, we look forward to a very different journey—through America’s heartland.
In anticipation of Marie’s visit, we’re very excited to announce our Summer Book Club. Beginning in July and continuing over several consecutive weeks, we will read AMERICAN HARVEST together, and through weekly postings and virtual discussions we’ll explore the many thoughtful and thought-provoking themes and events in the book. Capping the book club experience will be our live event with Marie, in which you will not only hear about the book and other works directly from the author but you’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions and share your thoughts.
Please RSVP to join the Summer Book Club and purchase the book at a special rate. Contact Jill Shiraki at jill@j-sei.org
Marie Mutsuki Mockett is the author of a novel, Picking Bones from Ash, and a memoir, Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye, which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. She has written for numerous publications and has been a guest on The World, Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered on NPR. She is a core faculty member of the Rainier Writing Workshop and a Visiting Writer in the MFA program Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California.
AMERICAN HARVEST
For over one hundred years, the Mockett family has owned a seven-thousand-acre wheat farm in the panhandle of Nebraska, where Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s father was raised. Mockett, who grew up in bohemian Carmel, California, with her father and her Japanese mother, knew little about farming when she inherited this land. Her father had all but forsworn it. In American Harvest, Mockett accompanies a group of evangelical Christian wheat harvesters through the heartland at the invitation of Eric Wolgemuth, the conservative farmer who has cut her family’s fields for decades. American Harvest is an extraordinary evocation of the land and a thoughtful exploration of ingrained beliefs, from evangelical skepticism of evolution to cosmopolitan assumptions about food production and farming.