Book note: In the Gray Rain by Hazel Severson McCartney

Some books beg to be read in one sitting, and others beg to be read in bits, with breaks between chapters to let what you've read sink in. In the Gray Rain, by Hazel Severson McCartney (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1955, 1957) fell into the second category for me. I think I've been dipping into it off and on for a couple of years, but over the weekend I read the last eight chapters, since they seemed tied together. It's a good book, one I'd recommend to anyone interested in history or Japanese culture.

According to the dust jacket copy, after graduating from high school, the author spent three years as a secretary to a missionary in Japan. During World War II, she worked at a Japanese relocation center in Colorado, and then moved to the Tule Lake, California, center with her new husband, who was a counselor there. After the war, they moved to Japan to work in Lutheran schools there for four years. In 1955, Mrs. McCartney went back to Japan to complete this book.

Also from the dust jacket:

"I have read IN THE GRAY RAIN by Hazel McCartney and I have enjoyed the experience. Mrs. McCartney gives a lovely picture of Japan, subdued and gentle, and certainly very true, in the area of her experience." - PEARL S. BUCK

In the Gray Rain is a fascinating look at Japan after World War II. I think we tend to forget (if ever we learn in the first place) what real devastation looks like, and real courage and perseverance. These true life tales are full of families brought to their knees by constant malnutrition, of old men and old women working themselves to the bone, of devotion and a sense of duty, of cheerfulness and grit, of faith, and loss of faith.

It is a perceptive book, well-written, about people pushed to their limits, but rebuilding both their own lives and their war-torn country.

Each chapter opens with a haiku written for it. The first chapter's haiku:

In the harbor
only the seagulls
show no scars
from the long war

As she goes on to prove, though, there's a difference between being scarred and being destroyed.

In the Gray Rain is out of print, but at present it's easy to get a used copy on the Internet and prices are low.