East is East

T. C. Boyle debunks the American Dream almost as soon as castaway Hiro Tanaka washes up on Tupelo Island, Georgia. Instead of the City of Brotherly Love, he finds danger and condemnation. Tension quickly overtakes the comedic introduction of a 200-pound half-breed who jumps off a Japanese ship with a well-loved copy of The Way of the Samurai taped to his chest looking for cowboys and a vague idea of sharing a cheeseburger with his hippie father. His only champion in the land of “butter stinkers” is Ruth, an insecure member of the writer’s colony on the island who turn out to be as ruthless as the blood-sucking insects that torment Hiro.

Boyle is a master of quirky fiction. In this book he manages to satirize both the Japanese and show more rural Georgians with his stereotypical observations. That’s the beauty of Boyle! If you haven’t read any of his books before, you can expect the unexpected. You may laugh or you may cry (probably both), but you will experience his artful writing and piercing look into humanity. I am so glad that the release of another book by Boyle is imminent. I’m not sure what it’s about, although I am certain that another literary treat is in store for me. show less

Hiro Tanaka jumps ship off the cost of Georgia, hoping to find the City of Brotherly Love and perhaps even his American father, but nothing goes as planned. Stuck in the swamps and lowlands of an island off Georgia's coast, Hiro is accused of setting a fire and causing a death, and the manhunt can't seem to do anything right. Hiro is a strange mixture of naivete and slyness. Most of his naivete is about America, and he doesn't understand the language very well. A lot of this book is funny, but some of it is dark, with an underlying message about how we view outsiders. And the ending is brutal - I didn't expect that!

The largest complaint I have about the book is about the author not understanding Southern! He has people say "y'all" to a show more single person, and as far as I know, that is never done. Y'all is the second person plural.

Other than that, I found the book fun to read and unpredictable. show less

Having an American father (a hippie who came to Japan to learn the koto), Hiro has been scorned and insulted as a gaijin throughout his childhood. Driven out of merchant navy school, he has been able to achieve nothing better in life than the lowly status of third-class cook on a freighter. After a dispute about a recipe lands him in the ship's lock-up, he decides to make a new life for himself in America. Unfortunately, the ship is sailing along the coast of Georgia at the time, and Hiro swims ashore to find himself stranded on an island in the most obscure corner of the deep South.

Hiro is baffled to find that instead of Brotherly Love, he is greeted at every step with fear and suspicion. More and more isolated, his only solace is show more Mishima's commentary on The way of the samurai. Then Ruth, lowliest resident of the island's exclusive retreat for writers and artists, starts to take pity on him.

As often with Boyle, this book shows us ordinary, civilised and not especially successful people pushed into extreme situations and coping in surprising ways. The overweight, not very bright ship's cook becomes a samurai warrior; the eternal creative writing student puts down her glamorous rival and scores a lucrative book deal; the failed biologist discovers the elusive albino pygmy sunfish. In the process, of course we get to laugh at Japanese views of America, American views of Japan, rednecks, writers, avant-garde music, writers, writers (oh, did I mention writers....?).

I seem to have had this book sitting on my shelves for 12 years before reading beyond the second chapter, and judging by the number of copies and absence of reviews on LT so far, I'm not the only one. Which is a bit unfair to Boyle: it's not his best book, and it's rather too similar in its themes to The tortilla curtain, but it does have quite a bit of entertainment value, and did make me wonder whether it isn't about time to re-read Mishima... show less

Great book! It really sucked me in with the contrasts between the characters, the irony of the situations, and the tragic-comic coloring of everything. It tells the story of a Japanese sailor who jumps ship off the shore of Georgia and meets an array of odd characters, some that help him and some that hurt him, as he struggles to make sense of America and find a place for himself. One of the people that “helps” him is an ambitious female writer at an artist colony on a secluded island off the Georgia coast. Boyle draws her with a deft touch, hilarious in places and sadly ironic in others. An excellent novel.

A Japanese crew member from an ocean freighter, Hiro, jumps ship to find himself living in the swamps amidst a writer's colony. Boyle critiques the use of sex in writing and then employs it as a tool in this weakly wrought novel. He writes about the beauty of the island and the Okeefenokee Swamp where the main character flees his would-be captors. Boyle expresses all the prejudices of a person who has never visited these locations.

I found this book to be thoroughly enjoyable from the first paragraph to the very last word. It was an easy read and a fun story but still had depth. It's the story of searching for one's identity and place in the world, of prejudice and preconceived notions, of misunderstandings. Hiro Tanaka is born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a white father who abandoned them before he was born. As a half-breed he is never accepted in Japan, so at the age of 20 he decides to get a job as a cook on a ship bound for America, where he has heard they will accept anyone. Unfortunately, things go badly and he ends up jumping ship off the coast of Georgia, finally coming to shore on swampy, confusing Tupelo Island. Meanwhile, Ruth Dershowitz is an show more aspiring author at an artist's colony on the island struggling to make her mark on the world. Their paths intertwine. I really enjoyed the way the story was told from the points of view of different characters--from the main characters to minor characters to very minor characters--which helped explain all of the misunderstandings and how even though everyone has good intentions, bad situations can still occur. A great story. I'd love to read more by this author. show less

This book is quite similar to another novel by T C Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain in that it is about a culture clash between American and illegal immigrants. But I thought this book had more depth, more interesting characters and showed more imagination than the other book.

In this case, the illegal is Hiro, a 20 year old Japanese cook who jumps off a ship, thinking he is arriving in mainland USA, but actually ending up on Tupelo Island, Georgia. Here he encounters locals not used to foreigners and an artists colony and through a series of misunderstandings becomes a wanted man.

The book has some great comic moments at times being almost a farce, there are some witty observations in there, particularly regarding the writers at the artists show more retreat and Boyle has a great turn of phrase. But there is a serious side to the book about the lack of understanding and mistrust between cultures that gives it a serious side and a certain poignancy.

It isn't a life-changing book by any means, but it is an enjoyable read. show less