Author Sujata Massey writes hapa mysteries set in Japan (thanks, tilo). Her Bengali father once lived in Cambridge — 
alert Jhumpa Lahiri!
Her mother is from Bonne, Switzerland. Her father is a Calcutta-born Bengali. They met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she grew up in Philadelphia and Berkeley… she spends each day writing about a half-Japanese, half-American antiques dealer cum detective living in the seedier streets of Tokyo. [Link]
Her books’ titles (‘pearl,’ ‘kimono,’ ‘samurai’) pitch Asian exoticism, which, to be fair, is common in mass-market mysteries. One booster disagrees, but the name of his bookstore undercuts his argument 
“Sujata really evokes a modern, quirky Japan that most Americans aren’t familiar with,” said Joe Guglielmelli, co-owner of The Black Orchid mystery bookstore in New York City. “She’s the only mystery writer out there who’s doing modern-day Japan…” [Link]Massey chose a Japanese father and an American mother for Shimura to go against the grain. So often, Massey explains, it’s the other way around: The wife is Asian and the husband is American. “Asian women are exoticized,” she sighs… [Link]
She writes about the baffling and often funny Engrish popular in Japan (Hinglish ain’t no slouch either):
She prefers collecting the details of Japanese life… a “Milk Pie Club” sweat shirt; a brand of chocolate pretzels called “Pickle”; the “That’s Donald!” slogan on another passenger’s clothes. [Link]
Massey also catalogues the ethnic pecking order in Tokyo:
While [protagonist Rei Shimura] strives to fit in with Japanese people, she also spends time examining the rigid hierarchy among Tokyo’s gaijin, as foreigners are called. At the top of the heap are international expatriate businessmen who earn high salaries and live in luxury apartments with central heating paid for by company expense accounts. Next down are the American military, who have a cost-of-living allowance that covers American groceries and a house far from Tokyo without central heating.
Below the military is Rei Shimura’s class: teachers, translators and bar workers from countries such as the U.S., Canada and Australia. These gaijin usually share tiny, freezing apartments, one or two rooms with a hot-plate kitchen and a small bathroom molded out of a single piece of plastic. They have some tough times, but do not suffer the discrimination shown to workers who have traveled from countries like the Philippines, Brazil and Iran to perform jobs that are considered too hard, dirty or dangerous for the local population… [Link]
She finds women in India better off than those in Japan. Presumably she’s comparing the middle class:
“What I found surprising [is that] the lives of women in India are better than the lives of women in Japan,” she says. Massey points to the increasing number of professors and professionals, particularly in math and science, on the subcontinent and then states that while “women in Japan have more sexual freedom at an earlier age—in terms of career advancement, women have a higher success rate in India…” [Link]
Massey on hapa hyphenasian:
… Rei Shimura is multicultural; born in California, she has a Japanese father and an American mother… “The most important similarity I share with my sleuth is confusion over ethnic identity. Rei would like to be treated like a Japanese native, but her manners aren’t quite right, and she speaks her mind too freely…” [Link]“I found it easier to be accepted in Japan than in India,” she says. It was largely a matter of expectations. Because she was obviously not Japanese, Massey says, she wasn’t expected to know all the social rules, so a breach or two could be forgiven… “I shared some of my neuroses with Rei,” Massey says. “Rei has a continual dilemma of trying to find the place in the world she’s most comfortable.” [Link]
No, you just have to be fair and thin
… her daughter “will never feel that you have to be blonde to be beautiful,” … thanks to Massey’s extensive Bollywood movie collection… [Link]… [the] overseas covers… offer a window into the way the different countries regard mixed heritage people. For example, while the U.S. and European covers usually feature a model who looks 100% Asian, the heroine on the Japanese versions looks almost totally Caucasian! [Link]
… when [Shimamura] was finally able to visit Japan after many months in exile, what was she looking forward to? “Shopping for bras for myself in the only country where A-cups ruled…” [Link]
Massey’s personal story is more adventurous than the average Johns Hopkins grad:
I was born in Sussex, England to a father from India and a mother from Germany… When I was five, my parents emigrated to the United States… I probably would have written twenty-inch-long articles about fashion and food forever had I not been courted by an attractive Navy medical officer who made an offer I couldn’t refuse: marriage and the chance to live abroad…
Within the first few weeks, I… leased a charming Japanese-style house in a hilly seaside town called Hayama… The Salaryman’s Wife was published on August 16, 1997… I write at my home in Baltimore, but spend about a month per year in Japan… I rush from Zen temples to antique stores and the bars of Roppongi fueled by green tea, rice cakes and the occasional vodka tonic. [Link]
She’s interested in writing about the subcontinent, but it’s a competitive genre:
Massey says she’s interested in writing about India, where she and her husband have adopted two children. “Just as Rei has discovered her family in Japan, I’ve started to discover my family in India as an adult,” Massey says. “I’m finding myself as excited about India as I was about Japan. Maybe the answer is to send Rei to India…” [Link]… Massey points to the recent interest in all things subcontinental and declares, “I think it’s actually more challenging to write a book about South Asia than about Japan.” Indeed, if you count the growing number of South Asian American writers and add the large amount of writers from the subcontinent who are also writing in English, “there’s a glut of talented people…” [Link]
Her next book, The Typhoon Lover, is out in October.
