On the surface, Snow Falling on Cedars is about the murder trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, an American of Japanese descent charged with murdering Carl Heine, a fellow salmon fisherman; however, the trial really provides a framework for an analysis of the effect that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II had on the people of San Piedro Island, a small island in the Pacific Northwest. Snow Falling on Cedars opens in present-day 1954, at the start of Kabuo's trial, but the narrative moves back and forth in time. The trial itself takes only three days, but the novel spans the pre-war, World War II, and post-war eras. The novel explores the effects of war, the difficulties of race, and the mystery of human motivation. The characters act and react to one another and with one another in a combination murder mystery and courtroom drama, as well as provide the story of a doomed love affair. The text taken as a whole is a meditation on prejudice and justice and the effect that one has on the other.
On San Piedro, everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, and because World War II scarred everyone, a decade later the islanders are still trying to establish some semblance of normalcy. This proves difficult, though, since the Japanese islanders — many of whom were American citizens — were taken away and imprisoned during the war. Upon their return, those of Japanese descent faced prejudice, grudges, and anti-Japanese sentiment, and those who were interned had some prejudices of their own. So did the land dispute or the wartime internment lead to the circumstances of Carl Heine's death? Only circumstantial evidence and a possible motive exist to accuse Kabuo, but nonetheless, he is jailed for 77 days and is tried in court.
