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In September 1897 Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) contemplated crafting a poem to his new love, western writer Charles Warren Stoddard. He viewed their relationship as doomed by their introverted dispositions and differences in background. While confessing his love to Stoddard, Noguchi had a child with his editor, Léonie Gilmour; became engaged to Ethel Armes; and upon his return to Japan married Matsu Takeda—all within a span of seven years. This book argues that Noguchi was not a dedicated polyamorist: He deliberately deceived the three women, to whom he either pretended or promised marriage while already married. The book asserts further that Noguchi's intimacies point to little-known realities of race and sexuality in turn-of-the-century America and illuminate how Asian immigrants negotiated America's literary and arts community. As Noguchi maneuvered through cultural and linguistic differences, his affairs assert how Japanese in America could forge romantic fulfillment during a period historians describe as one of extreme sexual deprivation and discrimination for Asians, particularly in California. Moreover, Noguchi's relationships reveal how individuals who engaged in seemingly defiant behavior could exist peaceably within prevailing moral mandates. In unveiling Noguchi's interracial and same-sex affairs, this book attests to the complex interaction between lived sexualities and socio-legal mores as it traces how one man negotiated affection across cultural, linguistic, and moral divides to find fulfillment in unconventional yet acceptable ways.
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