History is always with us. Our history as individuals shapes our personalities, our national history shapes our collective culture and the two types of history often intersect. Andrew Lam’s new novel “Repentance” explores one such intersection.
Lam is a retinal surgeon who teaches at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and works as a consultant at Pioneer Valley Ophthalmic Consultants in Greenfield. “Repentance,” his third book, deals with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II.
Lam calls this group “per capita, the most decorated unit in U.S. military history.”
“The 442nd was a segregated unit of Japanese-American soldiers who fought with uncommon valor in Europe while many of them had families unjustly incarcerated in internment camps … at home,” he explained.
“They fought ferociously to prove they were just as loyal as other Americans. They won 21 Medals of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses and 560 Silver Stars. The 14,000 men who ultimately served in the 442nd won 9,486 Purple Hearts.”
His book begins 50 years after the war with a prominent cardiac surgeon, Daniel Tokunaga. Daniel’s father Ray fought with the 442nd, but the veteran doesn’t like to talk to his son about his service.
In fact, Ray doesn’t like to talk to Daniel at all; the two have argued so many times over the years that they are pretty much estranged.
Daniel’s mother’s sudden illness makes interaction between father and son necessary. Daniel is perplexed when he learns that the department of defense has launched an investigation into Ray’s service during the war.
The narrative moves back and forth between the 1990s and the 1940s, with a few flashbacks to the period in between, in which a young Daniel argues with Ray about the Vietnam War.
As Daniel contemplates what happened in all of these eras, he realizes that his father’s life is not the only existence that needs analyzing. His own dedication to his work above all else has put his marriage and his personal happiness in jeopardy.
Lam recounted how he came to combine practicing medicine with writing historical fiction, explaining that military history was his first love and his major in college.
“I decided to go to medical school because I knew being a physician would be very gratifying, and I wanted to spend my career helping people,” he said. “So I sacrificed my 20s and early 30s to my surgical training, always enjoying what I was learning and doing, but at the same time never losing my love of history and my desire to share fascinating aspects of history with others. This persistent, other passion for history is what led me to become a writer.”
He wrote his first novel, “Two Sons of China,” during his residency in medical school. It examined the relationship between two soldiers in China during the Second World War, one Chinese American and one communist Chinese.
His second book, “Saving Sight,” combined stories of what he calls “ophthalmology’s heroes” with his own experiences as a surgeon. The success of both books led him to keep looking for, and telling, under-told stories.
“I write because of my passion for shining a light on little-known aspects of history that deserve to be more well-known,” he said.
Lam noted that he sees similarities between his two vocations, medicine and writing.
“Both require dedication, perseverance and especially delayed gratification,” he said. “However, one difference is that in medicine, one can be fairly certain of success as long as one makes it through (one’s) studies and training. With writing, there is no assurance of success or even publication.
“I’ve found the key is to find a topic or story you’re passionate about so that the writing and research are their own intellectual reward and often don’t even feel like work,” he continued.
Lam said his two careers offer balance between “the different sides of (his) brain and personality.”
“As a surgeon I get to be decisive, empathetic, and perform operations with immediate, positive results,” he explained. “As a writer I get to be imaginative, thoughtful and share my passion for history with others.”
Lam reads a lot of history books himself, and becomes passionate about a topic that he thinks deserves to be more well-known.
“Then I try to think of a compelling way to share that story with readers who wish primarily to be entertained but who’d also enjoy learning about something they didn’t know before,” he said.
He believes his book has lessons to offer about the experience of war.
“That no one really knows how (he or she) will behave in combat until he or she comes under fire. That courage begins first and foremost with the suppression of fear, and the ability to act in spite of that fear,” he elaborated. “That men fight for each other, and that shame can be worse than death. That the terrible effects of war and PTSD can linger for decades and harm families for generations.”
One cannot talk about the experience of Japanese-Americans in World War II without mentioning the internment camps set up by the federal government to confine this population. One such camp is a feature of the novel; the hero’s mother and her family were imprisoned there.
The title “Repentance” thus has multiple meanings in the novel, Lam explained. It deals with the repentance of a soldier in the war who makes a horrible mistake, the repentance of a husband who has neglected his wife, and the repentance of a father who has alienated and damaged his son.
The final repentance, Lam said, is that of “a country that unjustly incarcerated more than 110,000 people — two-thirds of whom were citizens and half of whom were children — for the color of their skin.”
Andrew Lam will discuss “Repentance” on Saturday, May 11, at 4 p.m. at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley and on Monday, July 15, at 6:30 p.m. at the Forbes Library in Northampton.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.