David Mas Masumoto has a reputation as a remarkable writer. His previous work includes Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm (1996), Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil (1998), and Four Seasons in Five Senses (2003), among others. A third-generation farmer from California, his writing focuses on farming, his Japanese-American heritage, and what it means to live a good life.
His latest work, Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm, is thematically similar to his previous books but for the central revelation — a late-in-life discovery that his 90-year-old maternal aunt, whom he has never met or heard discussed, has been living in state care for 70 years. To reckon with this “secret” family member, Masumoto weaves speculation, family history, and farm sense into a story that is at once very specific to his family but is also rooted in the broader American landscape.