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In the Miso Soup

In the Miso Soup

by Ralph F. McCarthy (Translator), Ryu Murakami (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2005

    $36.17

  • New

    Paperback 2006

    $17.52
Synopsis

It's just before New Year. Frank, an overweight American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's nightlife on three successive evenings. But Frank's behaviour is so strange that Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion: that his client may be in fact the killer currently terrorizing the city. Kenji is a likeable, if far from innocent guide, leading the reader through the inferno of violence and evil into which he apparently unwillingly descends - and from which only Jun, his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, can possibly save him. Kenji's intimate knowledge of Tokyo's sex industry, his thoughtful observations and wisecracks, his insights into the emptiness and hypocrisy of contemporary Japan, and his ultimate moral paralysis and complicity reveal a deeply distressed and rotten modern world that seems to have lost its way in search of pleasure and instant gratification.

$36.17

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 192
 Edition: First Edition
 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 07 Feb 2005
ISBN 10: 0747574057
ISBN 13: 9780747574057
Book Overview: For fans of Michel Houellebecq and Bret Easton Ellis This dark modern Japanese morality will entertain and shock the reader A unique and important voice in international fiction

Media Reviews
'A blistering portrait of contemporary Japan, its nihilism and decadence wrapped up within one of the most savage thrillers since THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.' Kirkus Review 'Deft and fascinating ... a grisly tour of the darkness and confusion of the human mind.' The New York Times 'In the Miso Soup is quality pulp made out of Japan's crushed, dark heart: our pride, it suggests, is matched only by our self-hatred ... In the Miso Soup often reads like a collaboration between Stephen King and Michel Houellebecq, with off-key karaoke going on in the background. He gives you shocking blood-violence, but the social critique is never far behind.' LA Weekly 'His latest oozes darkness and ambiguity and reads like a cross-Pacific bullet train.' Entertainment Weekly
Author Bio
On a recent trip to Britain, bestselling author Haruki Murakami was asked who his favourite Japanese author was. He replied that it was his namesake, Ryu Murakami. Renaissance man for the postmodern age, Ryu Murakami has played drums for a rock group, made movies and hosted a TV talk show. Whilst he was still a student, his first novel Almost Transparent Blue was awarded Japan's most coveted literary prize and went on to sell over a million copies. Ralph McCarthy is the translator of 69 by Ryu Murakami and two collections of stories by Osamu Dazai.