Book Review: 'Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses' by M.G. Sheftall

 

[I received a review copy of this publication from the publisher via Netgalley.]
 

Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses by M.G. Sheftall is the first volume in what will be a two-book series covering Sheftall's extensive research into the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This first volume, which covers the bombing of Hiroshima, is the result of years of personal interviews with Hiroshima survivors and research into the atomic bomb and its effects, including literal physical effects and the social and psychological effects that survivors faced down the years.
 
If I were to choose one word to describe this book, it would be this: unrelenting. Because when the chapters begin to hone in on details clearly gleaned from the personal testimony of survivors, it really does feel like an unrelenting surge of horror that you can’t look away from. Nor should you be able to.
 
Sheftall’s book begins chronologically, with the lead-up to the bombing, some backstory on its creation and mechanics, before moving into what begins as chronological almost minute-by-minute testimony related to survivors and victims of the bomb.
 
It is in the information taken from interviews and testimonies that the importance of this book really takes shape.
 
While Sheftall's book is not the first English-language book to contain detailed testimony from survivors, it is the first one I’ve read which incorporates every possible human detail and, most importantly of all in terms of historical value, places that testimony into its proper context.
 
We are not just told that a person was at such-and-such a place during the bomb. Those who died, and those who survived, are not vague figures or statistics mentioned in passing. Instead, Sheftall reconstructs who they were, how they came to be in a specific place when the bomb dropped, and even <I>why</I> they were there in the first place.
 
Due to the ages of the survivors Sheftall interviewed, most of the detailed survivor accounts come from students who had been part of the forced labor mobilization that took Japanese students out of the classrooms and placed them in factories, working on firebreaks, and training for what was expected to be a land invasion. So many of the victims discussed here were killed in schools, or while working with classmates; survivors, more often than not, were those who happened to stay home that day.
 
It quickly becomes clear when reading Sheftall’s account of events that the difference between life and death in Hiroshima was often due to random circumstances.
 
One girl survived because her class team leader lost a game to determine which students worked on an area that would end up being close to ground zero, while the others were further away and thus, more likely to survive the bombing. One boy survived because he had a stomach ache and, since his father (who would not have accepted a stomach ache as a reason to stay home from important war work) was not home, his mother let him stay in bed to rest.
 
It is when exploring these human details that the book is at its most engrossing and informative, despite the unrelenting nature of the information we learn. The reconstruction of events created from invaluable primary sources (I.e, Sheftall’s many interviews, along with published narratives and testimony) provide invaluable information about what was happening on the ground, in addition to sharing what will be far lesser known experiences to English-speaking readers.
 
However, shortly after the initial set of detailed minute-by-minute testimony about the bomb and its short and long aftermath, the book suddenly seems to stop: it goes from a chronological account based on survivor testimony into modern first person anecdotes from the perspective of Sheftall.
 
These first person passages(both the initial interlude and then later random passages) tend to revolve around Sheftall’s research. Sheftall recalls how he felt judged when visiting a memorial park, how he convinced a certain survivor to give an interview, how he attended various memorials down the years and his reception there.
 
In these passages, the book feels like it’s more about Sheftall than the subject of the narrative. This may have felt more appropriate as an author’s note in the introduction, but it is rather strange when it occurs on and off throughout the book proper.
 
Another jarring element of the book is that while it began chronologically before suddenly shifting to a chapter discussing Sheftall visiting a survivor in the hopes of gaining an interview, after this initial first person interlude,  it jumps back to “the beginning,” so to speak.
 
After the sudden chapter from the author’s point-of-view, the book heads back in time to present another round of testimonies starting before the bomb dropped. From this point on, the chapters go back and forth so often, suddenly stopping the narrative about a certain family or individual before beginning a new chapter about someone else, that it becomes dizzying. It’s essential to take notes to keep track of everyone, and it’s frustrating to constantly go back and forth in the timeline.
 
While the book excels at presenting detailed information about the survivors and victims that presents a complete picture of the human beings affected by the decisions of the governments above them, sometimes I had to wonder why Sheftall spent so much time on certain elements.
 
The strongest example of this is a multi-chapter interlude where Sheftall goes into the history of Christianity in Japan and then specifically in Christianity in Hiroshima. This interlude begins after Sheftall ends a chapter by noting a survivor who ended up turning to Christianity in the years after the bombing.
 
Then we are suddenly thrust into a multi-chapter historical lesson (it takes two chapters to get back to the survivor in question) that veers so far off from the narrative path that I had to go back two chapters to remind myself where we had been.
 
This type of excessive backstory also tends to happen when companies or organizations are mentioned. Instead of a paragraph or two explaining the history or context of the company, we get multiple pages about them, all simply because one person worked for them at the time of the bombing.
 
While I absolutely appreciate that Sheftall brings proper context to the people and events in question, sometimes--as with the two chapter Christianity backstory--it feels excessive.
 
Eventually, the book does fall back into a more-or-less chronological narrative, discussing the social and political aftermath of the bombings for those that survived. This is another element of the book that shines strongly, particularly because Sheftall isn’t afraid to debunk myths and expose the less appealing underside of the narratives built up around the bombing in the decades afterward.
 
Sheftall, for instance, notes one survivor who became unpopular in survivor’s groups because she wrote about and denounced the ultra-conservative narrative being embraced by the families of many victims; this narrative mirrored the same narrative used in the enshrinement of war criminals at Yasukuni shrine. While other books might shy away from exposing this unappealing element--both the narrative and the treatment of the survivor--Sheftfall lets readers take it in.
 
Overall, while I have some misgivings about the structure of the book and the sometimes jumbled focus, I do think that Sheftalls’ incredible intimate, detailed reconstructions of the experiences of those who survived--or didn’t survive--the bombing of Hiroshima will make this one of “the” books on the subject in the years to come.