From Publishers Weekly
art Remains of the Day, part wartime drama, this delicately written, somewhat didactic novel is set in Salty Creek, Ga., in the two years before Pearl Harbor. It focuses on Miss Anne, the moral center of the community, and on her recollection, years later, of the romance between town spinster Sophie and Grover Cleveland Oto, the California-born 50-year-old everyone thinks of as Miss Anne's "Chinese" gardener. Both Sophie and Oto harbor secrets. Sophie's is that the man she loved didn't return from WWI; Oto's is that happenstance and a Greyhound bus driver left him in Salty Creek, starved and in disgrace, far from his Japanese-American family. For two years the two are preternaturally aware of each other, but constrained from anything but brief, polite conversation. Each is a painter, and artistic imagination sustains both. In time, they fall into the habit of meeting at the riverbank on Sunday mornings with brushes and paper to work in companionable silence while the other townsfolk sing hymns at church. The requisite town snoop and the presence of Sophie and Anne's household help ensures that Oto and Sophie keep a formal distance, but as the author's lyrical flights intensify, so does the couple's suppressed passion. Then the war unleashes cruelty disguised as patriotism and forces Oto into hiding. As in her earlier novel Praise Jerusalem!, Trobaugh depicts in aching detail the isolation that racism occasions, and once again suggests the small but heartwarming triumphs made possible by human dignity and courage. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
It's 1941, and small-town spinster Sophie has fallen in love with a completely inappropriate fellow. Mr. Oto, a Japanese American gardener, years older, has captured her heart. The growth of their relationship is a gradual, tentative, even poetic event. However, the bombing of Pearl Harbor soon complicates this friendship. The townspeople of Sophie's Georgia burg are suspicious of outsiders and of any unconventional behavior. After the bombing, Mr. Oto must go into hiding while his landlady, Miss Anne, and Sophie both bravely conspire to hide and feed him. The end of the story brings the sudden disappearance of both Sophie and Mr. Oto, and it's up to readers to decide what this means for the protagonists. Trobaugh (Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb) has written another Southern novel featuring a beautiful and unusual love story. Recommended for all public libraries. Carol J. Bissett, New Braunfels P.L., TX Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Former "Golden Girl" Rue McClanahan is a great match for Trobaugh's tale of small-town life in the South during WWII. McClanahan provides each character with a different voice, the best being that of Ruth, an example of all that can be bad, suspicious, and meddling in a small-town dynamic. As Sophie, the lead character, falls in love with Mr. Oto, a Japanese-American gardener, townsfolk talk, and McClanahan captures the essence of harsh gossip and the toll it takes on each character. And McClanahan's reading of Miss Anne's narrations are as smooth and conversational as a cup of tea with an old, well-loved relative. The only hurdle in the presentation is her slow pace; while it 's a good fit for the Southern drawl of each character, it slows down one's involvement with the story. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Trobaugh's third novel follows her well-received earlier ones, Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb (1999) and Praise Jerusalem! (1997). Readers unfamiliar with the author will certainly experience the thrill of discovery, for Trobaugh's story of love lost and found in a small Georgia town sparkles with wonderful moments and expertly created characters. Mr. Oto, a gardener, and Sophie, a spinster who has spent her youthful years taking care of relatives, meet in the local hardware store, and a genuine affection blossoms between the two. The time is 1939, and war brings fear to the town and changes to the growing romance between the hesitant Sophie and the quiet Mr. Oto. Trobaugh's story succeeds not simply because of its two main characters but also for believability of all the individuals who inhabit the town, and readers who have not read her two previous novels are bound to want to rectify that situation. Eileen Hardy
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Salty Creek is a sleepy Georgia town where everyone knows everyone else's business. Strangers rarely enter their midst. When the mysterious Mr. Oto arrives in the spring of 1939, he immediately becomes the talk of the town.

A quiet, unassuming Japanese man with a secret history of his own, Mr. Oto meets Sophie soon after arriving in Salty Creek and immediately falls in love with her. Sophie, having lost her true love during World War I, spent her youth caring for her mother and maiden aunts. Now that they are gone, she has resigned herself to a lonely, passionless existence. That all begins to change as she finds herself drawn to Mr. Oto.

When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Mr. Oto's newfound life comes under siege and Sophie must decide how much she is willing to risk for a future with the man who has brought such joy into her life.

Sophie and the Rising Sun tells an unforgettable story of a time when the world lost its innocence-and of a town that finds its redemption in an extraordinary love.

About the Author
Augusta Trobaugh, a semifinalist in the 1993 Pirates Alley Faulkner Competition, has written two previous novels, Praise Jerusalem! and Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Bound to draw comparisons to David Guterson's award-winning debut, Snow Falling on Cedars, Augusta Trobaugh's Southern novel has a completely different setting, but she is clearly Guterson's equal in setting a scene and character development. Sophie and the Rising Sun, set in small-town Georgia in the 1940s, is a moving and surprisingly timely novel that explores what happens when love blooms in dangerous times. Sophie, the title character, is a local spinster who has spent her youth and early adulthood caring for her mother and two elderly aunts (who have since passed on), and she is now resigned to living the rest of her life alone. Things take a turn when Sophie meets Mr. Oto, a quiet, foreign-looking newcomer who lives in a cottage owned by Sophie's childhood friend, the widow Miss Anne. Sophie finds herself drawn to Mr. Oto's gentle ways and artistic sensibilities. For his part, Mr. Oto admires Sophie's mature beauty; she awakens in him a story he had heard as a child, the tale of a crane transformed into a bride when a poor woodcutter cares for her. But the small-minded townspeople are suspicious of Mr. Oto. When Pearl Harbor is attacked, many begin to suspect that he may be Japanese and see in him the face of the enemy. In our own uncertain times, Augusta Trobaugh's novel seems piercingly familiar. (Winter 2002 Selection)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Salty Creek is a sleepy Georgia town where everyone knows everyone else's business, along with their place in the hierarchy of color, class, and family history. Strangers rarely enter their midst, and a mysterious arrival in the spring of 1939 soon sets tongues wagging.

A quiet, unassuming man with a secret history of his own, Mr. Oto is taken in as a gardener by Miss Anne, the town's conscience-and it's heart-with no illusions about Salty Creek or its inhabitants. One of these is Sophie, who lost her love during World War I and has resigned herself to a passionless existence taking care of her mother and maiden aunts. Then one day, she and Mr. Oto speak for the first time. To Mr. Oto, whose heart has been full from the moment he saw Sophie, it is one of life's miracles-when they finally break the silence of "the beauty of words unspoken."

When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and Mr. Oto's newfound life comes under siege, it is Miss Anne who once again comes to his rescue in an act of uncommon courage and sacrifice. As for Sophie, who has fallen in love with Mr. Oto, she must decide how much she is willing to risk for a future with this man who has brought such joy into her life.

Author Biography: Augusta Trobaugh is the author of two previous novels, Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb and Praise Jerusalem!, a semifinalist in the 1993 Pirates Alley Faulkner Competition. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Georgia, with a concentration in American and Southern literature, and her work has been funded through the Georgia Council of the Arts. She is at work on a new novel, her fourth.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Part Remains of the Day, part wartime drama, this delicately written, somewhat didactic novel is set in Salty Creek, Ga., in the two years before Pearl Harbor. It focuses on Miss Anne, the moral center of the community, and on her recollection, years later, of the romance between town spinster Sophie and Grover Cleveland Oto, the California-born 50-year-old everyone thinks of as Miss Anne's "Chinese" gardener. Both Sophie and Oto harbor secrets. Sophie's is that the man she loved didn't return from WWI; Oto's is that happenstance and a Greyhound bus driver left him in Salty Creek, starved and in disgrace, far from his Japanese-American family. For two years the two are preternaturally aware of each other, but constrained from anything but brief, polite conversation. Each is a painter, and artistic imagination sustains both. In time, they fall into the habit of meeting at the riverbank on Sunday mornings with brushes and paper to work in companionable silence while the other townsfolk sing hymns at church. The requisite town snoop and the presence of Sophie and Anne's household help ensures that Oto and Sophie keep a formal distance, but as the author's lyrical flights intensify, so does the couple's suppressed passion. Then the war unleashes cruelty disguised as patriotism and forces Oto into hiding. As in her earlier novel Praise Jerusalem!, Trobaugh depicts in aching detail the isolation that racism occasions, and once again suggests the small but heartwarming triumphs made possible by human dignity and courage. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

It's 1941, and small-town spinster Sophie has fallen in love with a completely inappropriate fellow. Mr. Oto, a Japanese American gardener, years older, has captured her heart. The growth of their relationship is a gradual, tentative, even poetic event. However, the bombing of Pearl Harbor soon complicates this friendship. The townspeople of Sophie's Georgia burg are suspicious of outsiders and of any unconventional behavior. After the bombing, Mr. Oto must go into hiding while his landlady, Miss Anne, and Sophie both bravely conspire to hide and feed him. The end of the story brings the sudden disappearance of both Sophie and Mr. Oto, and it's up to readers to decide what this means for the protagonists. Trobaugh (Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb) has written another Southern novel featuring a beautiful and unusual love story. Recommended for all public libraries. Carol J. Bissett, New Braunfels P.L., TX Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Former "Golden Girl" Rue McClanahan is a great match for Trobaugh's tale of small-town life in the South during WWII. McClanahan provides each character with a different voice, the best being that of Ruth, an example of all that can be bad, suspicious, and meddling in a small-town dynamic. As Sophie, the lead character, falls in love with Mr. Oto, a Japanese-American gardener, townsfolk talk, and McClanahan captures the essence of harsh gossip and the toll it takes on each character. And McClanahan's reading of Miss Anne's narrations are as smooth and conversational as a cup of tea with an old, well-loved relative. The only hurdle in the presentation is her slow pace; while it 's a good fit for the Southern drawl of each character, it slows down one's involvement with the story. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Second World War romance between a southern spinster and a Japanese gardener, by the author of Praise Jerusalem! (not reviewed), etc. Everyone in Salty Creek, Georgia, knows that taking care of her demanding, widowed mother and her crotchety maiden aunts left Sophie Willis no chance to marry. Though the town busybody is certain that she had a beau or two years ago, Sophie leads a quiet life now, painting watercolors and calling on other ladies. Then a Greyhound bus, the deus ex machina of so many southern tales, brings Mr. Oto to Salty Creek. Half-starved, sick, and delirious, he's nursed back to health by the doctor's wife Eulalie and taken in by Miss Anne, who lets him live in a small cabin behind her house in exchange for gardening. Soon Mr. Oto has transformed the weedy yard into a verdant paradise and fallen in love with Sophie, who stops by to observe his progress. He's ashamed to tell anyone how he ended up so far from his California home: When his aged father sent him, a man past 50, to New York with insultingly careful instructions to bring back his aunt, poor Mr. Oto lost all his money to street hustlers who beat him up, although he did find someone else's bus ticket. The lonely man's dreams of Sophie and visions of a huge crane, the Japanese symbol of marital fidelity and happiness, assure him Sophie is his one and only. She in turn is inexorably drawn to him-until the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, and Mr. Oto knows he must leave. Miss Anne hides him in a cabin down by the river, where he and Sophie consummate their forbidden passion in chastely lyrical prose. A hurricane threatens, and so does the town busybody, who delights in making trouble, especially for Sophie. But loveconquers all. Fussbudget style sinks a well-meaning romancer.

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