[1] Guterson, a teacher, wrote the book in the early morning hours over ten years, until eventually quitting his job to write full-time, following its success.

[2] Set on the fictional San Piedro Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, just north of Puget Sound, in the state of Washington in 1954, the plot revolves around a murder case in which Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American, is accused of killing Carl Heine, a respected fisherman in the close-knit community.

The trial, held in December 1954 during a snowstorm that grips the entire island, occurs in the midst of deep anti-Japanese sentiments following World War II.

Covering the case is the editor of the town's one-man newspaper, the San Piedro Review, Ishmael Chambers, a World War II US Marine Corps veteran who lost an arm fighting the Japanese at the Battle of Tarawa while watching his friends die.

Kabuo Miyamoto (a decorated war veteran of the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team), experienced prejudice because of his ancestry, following the Imperial Japanese Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor.

Also involved in the trial are Horace Whaley, the town coroner, and Ole Jurgensen, an elderly man who sells his strawberry field to Carl.

However, before the last payment was made, war erupted between the US and Japan following Pearl Harbor, and all islanders of Japanese ancestry were forced to relocate to internment camps.

When Jurgensen suffered a stroke and decided to sell the farm, he was approached by Carl Heine Jr., hours before Kabuo arrived to try to buy the land back.

It received its world premiere at Seattle's Book-it Repertory Theatre that same year,[3] and a subsequent production at Oregon's Portland Center Stage in 2010.