Yokota Officers Club

Description

Yokota Officers Club

Sarah Bird’s novel, Yokota Officers Club tells the story of Military Brat Bernadette Root who has come “home” to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, to spend the summer with her bizarre yet comforting clan. Ruled by a strict, regimented Air Force Major father, but grounded in their mother’s particular brand of humor, Bernie’s family was destined for military greatness during the glory days of the mid-’50s. But in Base life, where an unkempt lawn is cause for reassignment, one fateful misstep changed the Roots’ world forever. Yet the family’s silence cannot keep the wounds of the past from reemerging . . . nor can the memory fade of beloved Fumiko, the family’s former maid, whose name is now verboten. And the secrets long ago covered up in classic military style–through elimination and denial–are now forcing their way to the surface for a return engagement.

Review

As a military brat who grew up on a number of air force bases all over the United States and abroad I found this book to be a non-stop, cover to cover read.
Although I knew Yokota Officers Club was a fictional work, the characters became absolutely real to me. The brothers and sisters in this book were my brothers and sisters and my friends in the military base Capehart housing down the street. One of the book’s locales, Kadena AFB on Okinawa, “the rock” was much the same as one of the bases I grew up on, Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico, “the rock” on the other side of the world. The pilot father as a maniac behind the wheel, racing a large family packed into a car almost non-stop to his next duty station was my B-52 crewman father doing the same thing with my family.
The forever concerns I had while growing up of getting into trouble and ruining my father’s career, walked up behind me and once again breathed heavily down my neck as I read this book.