Set My Heart on Fire by Izumi Suzuki
Hope I'm in for a good time, I thought. Even if it's just for tonight. Set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo, Set My Heart On Fire tells the story of Izumi in her turbulent twenties. Through a series of disarmingly frank vignettes, author Izumi Suzuki presents an unforgettable portrait of a young woman encountering missteps and miscommunication, good music and unreliable men, powerful drugs and disorientating meds. Izumi usually keeps her relationships short but complicated, until she meets Jun. Set My Heart on Fire is a visceral novel about mistaken relationships and the convolutions of desire, about regret and acceptance. Pulsing through the narration is the protagonist's love of music, a vital soundtrack spanning the Zombies, T. Rex and the Rolling Stones as well as underground Japanese psychedelic-rock bands such as the Tigers and the Tempters.
The work and messages of Ursula KLe Guin, the author's longer-lived contemporary, come to mind. Both Suzuki and Le Guin knew that gender roles are a matter of costume or control, affect or affliction. The terms we use to define humanity are often inhuman -- Catherine Lacey * New York Times *
Suzuki's unique sensibility, which combined a punk aesthetic with a taste for the absurd. Her work-populated by misfits, loners, and femmes fatales alongside extraterrestrial boyfriends, intergalactic animal traffickers, and murderous teen-agers with E.S.P.-wryly blurs the boundary between earthly delinquency and otherworldly phenomena. * New Yorker *
Wild and restless ... I can't think of anyone I'd rather read than this countercultural icon of the Japanese literary underground. * Frieze *
Suzuki's distinctly misanthropic voice enlivens these narratives of women whose mundane lives are altered - sometimes humorously, sometimes catastrophically * Washington Post *
Suzuki's full-length Set My Heart on Fire takes place in the counterculture of 1970s Tokyo, full of rock and roll, drugs, and transgression. It's a world Suzuki knew intimately: the punk icon was deep in alternative music and film scenes during her short but brilliant life. If you like the bang and crash of loud music, and the passion and desire it inspires, you don't want to miss Suzuki's writing. -- James Folta * Lit Hub; Most Anticipated Books of 2024 *
Suzuki's unique sensibility, which combined a punk aesthetic with a taste for the absurd. Her work-populated by misfits, loners, and femmes fatales alongside extraterrestrial boyfriends, intergalactic animal traffickers, and murderous teen-agers with E.S.P.-wryly blurs the boundary between earthly delinquency and otherworldly phenomena. * New Yorker *
Wild and restless ... I can't think of anyone I'd rather read than this countercultural icon of the Japanese literary underground. * Frieze *
Suzuki's distinctly misanthropic voice enlivens these narratives of women whose mundane lives are altered - sometimes humorously, sometimes catastrophically * Washington Post *
Suzuki's full-length Set My Heart on Fire takes place in the counterculture of 1970s Tokyo, full of rock and roll, drugs, and transgression. It's a world Suzuki knew intimately: the punk icon was deep in alternative music and film scenes during her short but brilliant life. If you like the bang and crash of loud music, and the passion and desire it inspires, you don't want to miss Suzuki's writing. -- James Folta * Lit Hub; Most Anticipated Books of 2024 *
Izumi Suzuki (1949-1986) was a countercultural icon and a pioneer of Japanese science fiction. She worked as a keypunch operator before finding fame as a model and actress, but it was her writing that secured her reputation. She took her own life at the age of thirty-six.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781804293300 |
| ISBN 10 | 180429330X |
| Title | Set My Heart on Fire |
| Author | Izumi Suzuki |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Verso Books |
| Year published | 2024-11-12 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |