East is East - Softcover

Boyle, T. C

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747529337 ISBN 13: 9780747529330

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1996

Synopsis

Trained in the way of the Samurai, dreaming of the City of Brotherly Love, Hiro Tanaka impetuously jumps ship off the coast of Georgia - only to wash up on a barrier island populated by rednecks, descendants of black slaves, and a colony of crazed artists. Terrifying one islander - literally - to death, and fleeing not only from the Immigration Agents but also an elderly lady convinced he is Seiji Ozawa, Tanaka is unwittingly caught up in a hilarious and irretievably complicated spider's web of misunderstandings. His sole refuge on the island, the manipulative and ambiguous novelist Ruth Dershowitz, only draws him in ever deeper "Hilarious. A talented entertainer with a beady eye for the absurdities of culture shock." - "Guardian". "Boyle has a fine descriptive eye and peoples the novel with wonderfully absurd characters." - "Time Out".

About this title

About the Author

T. C. Boyle is the author of eleven novels, including World's End (winner of the PEN/FaulknerAward), Drop City (a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award), and The Inner Circle. His most recent story collections are Tooth and Claw and The Human Fly and Other Stories.

From Library Journal

Offspring of a young Japanese woman and a spaced-out American hippie briefly entranced with Japan, Hiro Tanaka grows up scorned as a half-breed in his racially pure homeland. So when he nears America aboard the sailing vessel on which he serves as cook's assistant, Hiro literally jumps ship. He's sure that in America a man of mixed race can easily fit in, but he's in for a big surprise. Landing on Tupelo Island near Georgia, he inadvertently frightens a number of witless residents and thus finds himself a hunted man. He is briefly protected by Ruth Dershowitz, a resident at a writers' colony on the island, but her motives are mixed: she's mostly interested in Hiro as an experience that will enhance her writing and highly developed sense of self. Indeed, virtually everyone in this picaresque novel acts primarily from self-interest; even our Hiro comes across as something of an anti-hero, self-pitying if vulnerable. Boyle's lucid prose charges ahead wrecklessly, sweeping readers along as it effortlessly blends the story of Hiro's plight with that of the writers' colony. But Boyle's unrelieved indictment of prejudice at times seems one-dimensional, his characters so bigoted, foolish, or otherwise unengaging that we are left longing for some sign of human dignity. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/90.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0747529337
• ISBN 13: 9780747529330
• Binding: Print on Demand (Paperback)
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384