Although described as horror this rather odd little book is more a gentle stroll through the demented mind of one overweight American Frank, and his somewhat shady confidante Kenji. Together they frequent the late-night Tokyo drinking dens, and similar dubious establishments in order to fuel Frank’s increasingly odd behaviour. It is only as the night progresses that Kenji’s suspicion of his unconventional colleague become a reality, that the true intentions of Frank are exposed, and life for Kenji can never be the same again. For those familiar with the style of Haruki Murakami  (Ryu Murakami is no relation) In the Misco Soup will prove to be a delightful read, but others may struggle with the unconventional story telling.

Someone years ago (back when I was still in high school) told me I seem like the type of person who would like this author, and recommended this book to me. It looked interesting so I put it on my to-read list, then I took it off because it didn't look as interesting...then last year I added it again because I kept thinking about it! So I was glad to finally be getting around to this.

This was a philosophical journey into the darker side of modern Japanese society. The reader gets a lot of fascinating introductions to different types of people in the Tokyo sex scene. Descriptions of different women who "sell it" and why, plus the people who facilitate the whole business. Toward the end of the story Frank talks about a Peruvian hooker who knew more about Japan than the Japanese women in an omiai club, who were only interested in fashion and expensive things and who sold themselves because they were lonely. There was also a guy named Satoshi in the beginning who was considered mental because he played with blocks on the train. I liked that guy.

I liked the concept of bonno, the worldly desires or bad instincts. And the parts about shifting between different worlds was cool, too. I got lost as a kid plenty of times (and still get lost easily now) so I know exactly what Frank was talking about when he said it was like entering a different reality.

Thought-provoking quotations:

• "All Americans have something lonely about them. I don't know what the reason for that might be, except maybe that they're all descended from immigrants." (p. 30) . . . "The type of loneliness where you need to keep struggling to accept a situation is fundamentally different from the sort you know you'll get through if you just hang in there." (p. 39)
• "Parents, teachers, government—they all teach you how to live the dreary, deadening life of a slave, but nobody teaches you how to live normally." (p. 62)
• "Very few people of our generation or the next will reach adulthood without experiencing the sort of unhappiness you can't really deal with on your own." (p. 72)
• "Basically people who love horror movies are people with boring lives. They want to be stimulated, and they need to reassure themselves, because when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films—they act as shock absorbers—and if they disappeared altogether it would mean losing one of the few ways we have to ease the anxiety of the imagination." (p. 161)

What's incredible about this book is the gentle build up of tension. It feels like someone playing an instrument off key, until on p.111 hell breaks loose. Audition (another book by the same author) did a similar thing to great effect. Once the violence kicks off it becomes one of the nastiest and most disturbing books I have ever read, up there with Frisk and American Psycho. But it also has some pretty huge themes running through it: humans' unexpected reactions to trauma, the insular nature of Japanese society, and boredom. Sheer existential boredom to which any distraction, however ugly, might seem like a relief.

My favourite lines -

"When the body's constrained, so is the spirit."

"[W]e always have to picture ourselves doing something before we can match the image with an action. And that was what Frank had made impossible - he'd destroyed our ability to visualise a course of action."

"Before Frank had turned up, this pub was like a symbol of Japan, self-contained, unwilling to interact with the world outside, just communing with itself in every breath - mmm, ahhh. People who've spent their lives being in that kind of bubble tend to panic in emergencies, to lose the ability to communicate, and to end up getting killed."

"That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether it would mean losing one of the few ways we have to ease the anxiety of the imagination."

.

Kenji is a "nightlife guide" for English-speaking tourists in Japan. Basically, he takes guys on tours of what the Japanese sex industry has to offer. Although Kenji gets quite a few customers via his little ad in Tokyo Pink Guide (a magazine about the sex industry in Tokyo), the work isn't as good as he expected it to be. He can never seem to save up enough for that trip to America he wants.

Kenji has seen a lot of foreigners, but his latest client, Frank, is different. On the surface, he's a loud and friendly New Yorker who wants to go everywhere and have some sex along the way. There are moments, however, when something dark and ugly peers out of Frank's eyes. Frank hired him for three nights, right up until New Year's Eve, and by the end of their first night together, Kenji becomes convinced that Frank is the serial killer who's been raping girls involved in compensated dating, killing them, and dismembering their bodies (not necessarily in this order).

This book could be divided into three parts. In the first part, Kenji is a guide and translator working with a strange and vaguely disturbing client. This section has a large amount of detail about how the various places Kenji and Frank visit work and takes place mostly during their first night together. I recall them going to a peep show, a lingerie bar (sounded a bit like a hostess club, only with the women dressed in nothing but lingerie), and some kind of club where they ended up going on a paid date that Frank had hoped would end with sex. They also spent some time at a batting cage, of all things. Considering what just the time with Kenji cost, it was a little surprising that Frank wanted to spend it just watching Kenji try to hit some baseballs. But Frank was weird, even at the very beginning.

The first part is surprisingly tame. No sex, on-page or otherwise. The closest Frank gets to having sex is a handjob at the peep show, which isn't on-page. Kenji asks the woman who did it for a few details, hoping for something that might tell him, one way or the other, whether Frank was the murderer. Some aspects of this part of the book could almost be viewed as darkly comedic. Even as Kenji worries that Frank might be a murderer, there are moments when Frank seems clownish and ridiculous.

In the second part, which occurs a little over halfway through, the violence and gore is cranked WAY up. It's basically just one scene, but it is not for the faint of heart. I didn't expect this level of nastiness and ended up skimming it for my own peace of mind. Even then, way more of this scene is burned into my brain than I'd like. There is

The third part returns to the pacing and overall content of the first part. Kenji continues to act as Frank's guide, although Frank is no longer interested in finding someone to have sex with. However, whereas the first part was filled with Kenji's suspicions, more a fear of what his gut told him Frank might be capable of that anything, in the second part Kenji is

The last part also had a sharp increase in Frank's level of self-reflection, philosophizing, and societal analysis. Kenji, too, found himself thinking about what it is to be Japanese. And, to be honest, I really didn't care what sorts of insights Frank had or inspired in Kenji.

I didn't like this book. I suppose it was intense and focused look at the emotional impact of three nights with a guy like Frank, but I don't know that that time was worthwhile.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)