Susanna Jones
Haunted In Tokyo
In Search of a Distant Voice
By Taichi Yamada (Translated by Michael Emmerich)
Faber & Faber 183pp £9.99 order from our bookshop
Taichi Yamada’s In Search of a Distant Voice was published in Japanese in 1989, completing a trilogy of novels which includes the ghostly Strangers, published to acclaim in English last year. His third novel brings us another beguiling story of guilt and longing.
A group of immigration officers raid a house outside Tokyo one morning and a strange, possibly magical, event occurs. Tsuneo Kasama, a young immigration officer, is chasing a Bangladeshi man through a graveyard when a mysterious force freezes him to the spot. He then experiences an inexplicable rush of sexual ecstasy, ‘a gunshot of delicious sweetness’. It leaves him humiliated, confused and haunted.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency