SuzanneRating:
Review
This story starts with Lisa Countryman, a missing American student purportedly in Tokyo to do research on her thesis, and delves into matters of identity and race. Lisa has a Japanese mother and black American father, and was adopted by African American parents. Her cultural research pulls back the curtain on the Japanese clubs catering to men with a need to view women as little girls, along with numerous other sexual peccadilloes. Likewise, looking for work leads her into some more or less shady businesses. When her sister reports her missing, Tom Hurley is the American at the Embassy who gets her case. Like Lisa, Tom's ethnic identity is hard for people to place; he's half Korean and half white, but tells everyone he's Hawaiian. Both have a bit of the expat drifter in them. Japan is depicted as a very racially prejudiced country. Kenzo Ota is the local policeman assigned to Lisa's case. He's Japanese through and through, but still struggles to find love and to succeed at work in their oppressive, rule-bound society. I can hardly believe this book is written by the same Don Lee who later wrote Wrack and Ruin; the voice is completely different! While Wrack and Ruin had me chuckling constantly, there's no joy in this one. It's a good story though, and an intriguing and cutting review of racism in general and Japanese culture in particular.
Best Line:
"...when she did claim racial solidarity with a group, people didn't believe her, suspecting she was merely trying to appropriate the radical-chic color of the month." (pg. 67)
KimRating:
Review
25 year-old Lisa Countryman is a stranger in a strange land when she goes to Japan on the pretext of gathering information for her thesis. And then she dies in the first chapter. Tom Hurley becomes involved in Lisa's disappearance because he's an Embassy officer, and Kenzo Ota is a police detective, and while Tom and Kenzo try to learn more about Lisa and the life she led during her short stay in Japan, we learn a lot of interesting things about Tom and Kenzo. Tom is a shallow ladies man who meets his match in married artist Julia Tinsley, while Kenzo is lonely, professionally insecure and may have an OCD problem. The one common denominator with all three main characters seemed to be their longing for something they could not have, which I think made them more human and lovable. This book was the perfect length (in hardback, 315 pages) and did not get bogged down once, which I completely appreciate after some of the tomes I've read recently. This story is vastly different from Mr. Lee's
Wrack and Ruin, which I also thoroughly enjoyed, but for different reasons. Check out both if you haven't by now.
Best Line:
"There were scandals, but nothing was really scandalous, because the worst things imaginable happened every day and were immediately packaged into entertainment."
