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American Fuji

by Sara Backer
American Fuji

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  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780425230091
ISBN10: 0425230090
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

?Japan itself is the comic hero of American Fuji?sweet and funny, sad and inspiring.?

Gaby Stanton, an American professor living in Japan, has lost her job teaching English at Shizuyama University. (No one will tell her exactly why.) Alex Thorn, an American psychologist, is mourning his son, a Shizuyama exchange student who was killed in an accident. (No one will tell him exactly how.) Alex has come to this utterly foreign place to find the truth, and now Gaby is serving as his translator and guide. The key to mastering Japanese, she keeps telling him, is understanding what's not being said. And in this "deft and delightful" (Karen Joy Fowler) novel, the unsaid truths about everything from work and love to illness and death cast a deafening silence-and tower in the background like Mount Fuji itself.

Synopsis

Mount Fuji is the backdrop for this story of Gaby Stanton, an American professor living in Japan, who helps Alex Thorn investigate the death of his son at Shizuyama University.

About the Author

Sara Backer was the first American and the first woman to serve as visiting professor of English at Japan's Shizuoka University. An early draft of American Fuji was named a finalist in the James Jones First Novel Competition, and a play she wrote as a Djerassi artist in residence was chosen for performance at the Edward Albee Theatre Conference in June 2000. A published poet and short-story writer, Backer lives in New Hampshire.

4.5 2

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Average customer rating 4.5 (2 comments)

`
William Carpenter , January 29, 2010
Why should American Fuji be the book of the decade? 1) It was published not once, but twice in the same decade. 2) While Japan's Lost Decade was in the news when it first came out in 2001, health care systems were the hot news when it was reissued in 2009. 3) It shows how much of Japan we've imitated since the 1990s: automatic banking, phone cards, and cell phones. 4) It predicted the resurgence of The Beatles with their re-mastered CD release. 5) Its protagonist comes from Portland, Oregon. 6) It's a damn good novel.

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`
Bacchus , January 27, 2010
Backer seems to have a very detailed grasp of both the Japanese consciousness and the isolation of being a gaijin in a sea of Japanese. American Fuji is engaging and entertaining, with some great dialog and memorable characters. The Yakuza are portrayed a bit more cartoonish than realistic, but it doesn't detract from the novel. I would recommend to anyone interested in fiction set in Japan.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780425230091
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
09/01/2009
Publisher:
PENGUIN PUTNAM TRADE
Pages:
408
Height:
.94IN
Width:
4.94IN
Thickness:
.94 in.
Age Range:
18 and up
Grade Range:
13 and up
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2009
UPC Code:
2800425230093
Author:
Sara Backer
Subject:
Literature-Contemporary Women
Subject:
Japan
Subject:
Culture conflict

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