The Bowl with Gold Seams
Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s debut novel was inspired by a surreptitious visit to the then shuttered, once famous Bedford Springs resort near her summer home in Pennsylvania. Intrigued by the deserted grand hotel, she uncovered an unusual chapter in the history of the hotel. In the summer of 1945, the State Department used the resort as the detainment center for the Japanese ambassador to Berlin, his staff, and their families.
The Bowl With Gold Seams tells a story of unexpected personal transformation for Hazel, a young local woman working at the hotel among the Japanese, and the reverberating lifelong consequences of that experience. The final events of the war challenge Hazel’s beliefs about enemies and friends, victory and defeat, love and loyalty and leave her haunted by memories. Long after the end of the war, a chance encounter causes Hazel to return to the hotel to confront her past, come to terms with her present life, and determine her future.
Working on the novel, Ellen became fascinated by the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with golden glue. A Kintsugi bowl is featured in the plot, and represents an important theme in the novel: that which is broken can also be beautiful. A Kintsugi bowl graces the cover of the novel — with a faint image of the hotel floating inside. A serendipitous example of damage repaired; the Bedford Springs, closed for more than 20 years since a flood, was restored and re-opened as Ellen wrote. She is a frequent visitor there, reading and discussing The Bowl with Gold Seams.
The Bowl with Gold Seams received the National Indie Excellence Award in Historical Fiction.
Praise
“…A beautiful story of how the way we see things can change. Its themes of fatherly love, confused loyalties, justice, vulnerability, and looking inward to take what’s broken and make it beautiful make this a novel that book clubs will want to discuss. […]A tribute to the author’s finely honed skills as a critically acclaimed short story writer and to her experience as a practicing psychotherapist.”
– Hungry for Good Books
“The Bowl with Gold Seams is not captured fully by the label ‘historical fiction,’ though it is certainly that. It conveys a shimmering sense of intimacy and an awareness of brokenness on personal, family, community, and even national levels. It moves toward a closure that is not forced or fully realized, and that tentativeness is one exquisite note among many.”
– The Washington Independent Review of Books
“The key image for The Bowl with Gold Seams is a kintsugi bowl, a piece of pottery that has been broken and mended with golden glue. This is an object that […]transforms that brokenness into its finest attribute. It’s an all-too-human paradox—like love in war, faith amidst death, kindness in return for cruelty. […] The novel gives its reader light and shadow, broken and repaired.”
“It’s been a long time since I couldn’t put a book down because I was so engrossed in the reading. […]This is a poignant, beautiful gem of a historical novel written by a skilled author.”
“Many poignant themes are beautifully explored throughout — loss and absence, loneliness and separation, kindness and cruelty. faith and hopelessness, love and loyalty, life and death, and of course, race prejudice and hatred… Get the book and read it. You will not be disappointed. You will be surprised and moved.”
– Bedford Gazette
Behind the Scenes
Talking Writing: “No Trespassing”
Ellen explains how curiosity and intuition led her to hidden history and writing The Bowl with Gold Seams—and, after publication, to a real-life encounter with one of her imagined characters:
“In 2003, I disregarded the “No Trespassing” sign posted by the entrance. I walked up the drive to the Bedford Springs Hotel, climbed the stairs—careful to avoid the mostly rotten risers—and peered in the dirty windows along the long colonnaded porch.” Read more…
Ellen reflects on piecing together lives and art, and how the ancient Japanese art of mending broken pottery with golden glue became part of the plot, and the over-arching theme of the novel.
“If writing is kintsugi on the page, kintsugi is the art of losing.” Read more…
