Dixieland Sushi

Dixieland Sushi is a 2005 novel written by Cara Lockwood and published by Downtown Books, an imprint of Pocket Books (a division of Simon & Schuster). The novel is part of a genre of contemporary women’s fiction sometimes labeled “chick lit,” addressing romantic relationships but with female characters with more agency than in traditional romance novels. The story centers upon Jen Nakamura Taylor, who is half-Japanese and half-white, returning to her hometown of Dixieland, Arkansas, for the wedding of a former crush. Like her protagonist, author Cara Lockwood (who later began writing under her maiden name Cara Tanamachi) is of white and Asian descent; her Japanese paternal grandparents met at an internment camp in Arizona during World War II. Lockwood herself grew up in Texas.

Born in 1974, Jen grew up in the small fictional Arkansas town of Dixieland (population 10,230 and self-proclaimed “home of Fried Pickles and the Best Barbecue in the South”), located in southwestern Arkansas, where she was overly conscious of her mixed-race background (her mother, Vivien, is Japanese, while her father Bradford “Bubba” Taylor is white). Now twenty-eight, Jen is working as a television producer in Chicago when she is invited to the Dixieland wedding of Kevin Peterson, on whom she had had a crush since the third grade, and her twenty-year-old cousin, Lucy (once a finalist in the Miss Arkansas Pageant). Jen struggles to find a date for the event and is eventually encouraged by her friend Tiffany to take Tiffany’s British live-in-boyfriend (and Jen’s coworker), Nigel Riley, although this is less generous than it might seem, for when Jen goes to pick up Riley for the drive to Arkansas, she learns that Tiffany plans to relocate to Los Angeles, California, with a new Australian “friend,” Paul.

On the drive, Jen and Riley talk a lot, briefly visit Graceland (the home of Elvis Presley) in Memphis, and have car trouble, but fortunately, despite it being the twenty-fifth anniversary of Presley’s death, they are able to get a room (the Burning Love Junior Suite) at the Heartbreak Hotel for the night. After a night of karaoke and drinks, they end up having sex back at the hotel. The next morning is awkward for both, and when the mechanic reports he needs more time for their car, they are forced into airline travel, which Jen hates.

Riley gets along well with both sides of Jen’s family, and she and Riley both realize that they are passionate for each other. Later, at dinner at the Catfish Parlour, her coworker Anne calls to tell her that the producer of the evening news show (Jen’s desired job) has resigned and that Jen will have to act quickly to be considered for it; after the call, Kevin confesses that he was always attracted to her in school and kisses her, which Riley witnesses.

Kevin corners Jen right before the wedding to ask her, “Do you think there is any chance we could be together?” Jen tells him that she is never moving back to Dixieland and leaves. At the wedding, when the pastor says, “If anyone knows of a reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace,” two of the bridesmaids confess their love for (and ongoing affairs with) Kevin, and then an old classmate, Billy Connor, now a trooper with the Arkansas State Police, bursts through the door to announce that he is in love with Lucy, who runs off with Billy in his truck.

Riley receives a call from Tiffany, whose mother just had a heart attack, and flies back to Chicago, telling Jen he still has a lot of thinking to do. Jen gets a ride to Memphis and drives to Chicago, where she discovers that things are still chaotic at work, and that she is being offered the promotion she wanted. Jen does not hear from Riley for a few weeks, but then he shows up at her apartment with roses, saying, “I realized on that little trip of ours that it’s not Tiffany I love.” The book ends with them kissing.

For additional information:
Cara Tanamachi & Cara Lockwood: One Author, Two Names. https://caratanamachi.com/ (accessed April 19, 2025).

Lockwood, Cara. Dixieland Sushi. New York: Downtown Press, 2005.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas