studied engineering at U.C. San Diego and U.C. Berkeley and also spent a year at the University of Tokyo studying virtual reality. Her first love, however, has always been fiction writing, which she pursued as a hobby on the side.
Yamashita submitted her first screenplay to a competition where she was discovered by an agent at the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) who offered to represent her. Her big break came when she was recruited to write the script Letters From Iwo Jima for Clint Eastwood. Letters was named “Best Picture” by both the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It received a Golden Globe award for “Best Foreign Language Film” of 2006 and was nominated for 4 Oscars including “Best Picture” and “Best Original Screenplay.”
Yamashita applied the Page 69 Test to City Under One Roof, her debut mystery novel, and reported the following:
On page 69, we’re in a flashback with the protagonist, Cara Kennedy, a detective investigating a brutal murder in a small, isolated town in Alaska. She’s remembering a trip to the wilderness with her husband, Aaron, and her six-year-old son, Dylan.Visit Iris Yamashita's website.Cara finally felt content and at peace, away from the murder cases and the gray pall that she felt while in Anchorage. They spent the first day on breathtaking hikes, where every vista was postcard perfect. It was still early in September, not the optimal viewing time for the aurora, but still, thanks to a coronal hole, neon green lights floated across the night like Christmas ribbons gifting the star-filled sky. It was moments like these that reaffirmed Cara’s love for Alaska and all its cathartic beauty.This page happens to be in the middle of a flashback, so it doesn’t take place in the isolated and claustrophobic building where most of the book is set. However, it does give some back story to the protagonist, mentions “murder cases” in Alaska and hints of an impending mystery or disaster, so in that sense, I suppose it gives a reader a good idea of what to expect.
On the third morning, Dylan wanted to look for snowshoe hares, so Aaron traipsed out with him early, carrying his camera gear and tripod, while Cara opted to sleep in. She withheld her instinct to worry when they didn’t return for lunch. She had already tried to call Aaron’s cell but wasn’t surprised when it went straight to his mailbox. Dead spots in the wilderness area were to be expected. She left a message anyway and sent him a text for good measure. Then she began preparing grilled cheese sandwiches and hot tomato soup for them, expecting them to walk through the door at any moment.
Cara’s voice is just one of three in the book, so I would still hope for readers to take a look at some other pages to get a sense of the other voices as well. Amy Lin, who is a teenaged resident of the isolated town and whose mother runs the local Chinese restaurant is the second voice. The third voice is from Lonnie Mercer, a resident with a mental disability who keeps a pet moose named Denny and wears a different colored beret every day.
Q&A with Iris Yamashita.
--Marshal Zeringue
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