In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

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.

'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

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.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780747574057
ISBN 10	0747574057
Title	In the Miso Soup
Author	Ryu Murakami
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published	2005-02-07
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable