FGs Acting Up in Tokyo

[Mulboyne]

"The Method Actors" by Carl Shuker
From the Complete Review review

The Method Actors is a novel of twenty-somethings in Japan, foreigners (gaijin) in a very foreign land. In generally painstaking detail Shuker describes the foreigners' lives in Tokyo, from those who come over to teach English in the JET programme to the sons and daughters of privilege -- Michael and Meredith, whose father is a New Zealand judge with a penthouse suite in the Shinjuku Prince they can use and Simon, whose entrepreneur-father charges him with dining at the finest restaurants a couple of times a week to look for cooking staff he can poach for his restaurants. Chapters focus on different characters (some of them narrating their own stories, others not), making for perhaps close to a dozen closely observed foreigner-in-Japan accounts in all.

Japan Times Review

[Naniwan Kid]

I have just started reading this....and I think I need to start over, as I was a little buzzed when I started (two little bottles of wine on a plane from SFO to KIX). Indeed, it moves at a slower pace, but I must admit, it creates clear and distinct images in the mind, even if the subject isn`t life changing. The only thing that`s really bugged me is the mistakes in Japanese (maybe they are on purpose, I don`t know yet). One character mentions how another tries to compiment a third saying "Se ga ookii" when she meant "Se ga takai" (fine so far), but then goes on to say "`Se ga takai` can also mean `You are expensive`", implying "Se" means "you"....a minor bitch, to be sure. If I ever finish it I`ll give a full review.

[Naniwan Kid]

I am about 2/3 through this book, and it`s an almost too real acount of life as a non-Japanese speaking gaij in Tokyo. Some of it`s too real, and most of it is depressing. It`s a lot like Less Than Zero, Japan, but much more in depth and deep, if not showing the lack of depth of the characters that show up.......1/3 to go.

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

RadioNZ: Epic novel honoured with literary prize
One of New Zealand's leading writers says he hopes more New Zealand publishers will have the courage to produce epic novels like the book that won the country's richest literary prize on Saturday. Carl Shuker won the $65,000 Prize in Modern Letters for his novel The Method Actors, which was published in the United States...The book is set in Japan, where Shuker worked as an editor, and tells a story of hedonistic young expatriates caught up in a secret history of Japan. The novel was praised by the judges for its accurate portrayal of different cultures and varying emotional universes.