Bee Book Club chooses ‘Secret Harvests’ by Central Valley author as first selection
The memoir “Secret Harvests” will launch The Bee Book Club, a collaboration between The Modesto Bee and the bookstore Bookish. The author, David Mas Masumoto, will speak at the first book club meeting, April 21 at Bookish.
“Secret Harvests” is a memoir detailing how the Japanese American internment camps separated Masumoto’s family from an aunt who was a ward of the state. The book uncovers Masumoto and his family’s unlikely reunion with his aunt decades later, and the history he gleans of her life.
Masumoto and his family own a farm in Fresno that grows peaches, nectarines, apricots and grapes. In addition to “Secret Harvests,” he has written “Epitaph for a Peach,” “Changing Season,” “Wisdom of the Last Farmer,” “Four Seasons in Five Senses,” “A Sense of Yosemite,” and “Harvest Son.” He’s also written a cookbook with his wife, Marcy, and daughter Nikiko called “The Perfect Peach.”
Synopsis by Masumoto
I discover a “lost” aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a “ward” of the state.
We believed she had died, but 70 years later found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family—especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.
The book has garnered praise for the vulnerability with which Masumoto invites readers into his family history and for his lyrical prose.
Bee Book Club readers are asked to order their copies online with Bookish Modesto. Bee Book Club members will receive a 15% discount on their purchases of our selections if they use the promo code BOOKCLUB15 at checkout.
The April 21 first meeting will be hosted at Bookish Modesto where readers will have an opportunity to hear from Masumoto himself. For anyone still interested in signing up for the book club, please fill out this Google Form.
This story was originally published February 28, 2026 at 6:00 AM.
