Occupied City

ISBN: 1441754822

Author: David Peace

Condition: New

Product Description From the author of Tokyo Year Zero, an exquisitely dark new novel that returns us to post-World War II occupied Japan: a Rashoman-like retelling of a horrific murder--based on an actual event--its aftermath, and the hidden war-time atrocities behind the crime. On January 26, 1948, a public health official arrives at a branch of the Teikoku Bank in Tokyo. There has been an outbreak of dysentery in the neighborhood, he says, and he has been assigned by Occupation authorities to treat all locals who might have been exposed. The staff gathers as the official pours the first of two medicines into cups and instructs them how exactly to drink it. Within five minutes, ten employees are dead, and the official has fled. But this horrific crime is merely the catalyst for this blistering novel. It is in the twelve different voices telling the story that the narrative gathers staggering power and pathos. Each plays a part in a tangle of witting or unwitting complicity in blurring the line between truth and lies: in their own lives, in the life of their city, their history, their nation, and the newly emerging post-war world. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. If ever a book demanded a full cast audio enactment, it would be this unconventional novel based on an infamous real event: the 1948 fatal poisoning of 12 people in a Tokyo bank. In this second book in Peace's Tokyo trilogy, Peace explores the aftermath, as described by an assortment of involved narrators, including a journalist who falls in love with one of the survivors; a police investigator driven mad by his hatred of Americans; a woman who feels guilty for having survived the event; the prime suspect, who concludes that all men are guilty of something; and the unknown killer himself. The talented cast assembled for this remarkable production creates an emotional dramatic ensemble performance that is at times poetic, mesmerizing, eloquent, brutal, mournful, touched by madness, and never less than fascinating. A Knopf hardcover. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Review A tour de force. . . In Rashmon fashion, a number of disparate characters offer dramatically different perspectives on a horrific crime that claims 12 lives . . . Peace humanizes his characters and provides subtle insights into how they interpret the facts of the mass murder. This literary thriller will more than satisfy readers with a taste for ambiguity. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)Occupied City is a stunning--and stunningly challenging--novel, a product of extensive historical research, remarkable imagination, and deep insight. It is certainly among the best books of the new year. --Booklist (starred review)Powerful and ambitious. . . Peace [is] immensely talented. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) David Peace raids fact for fiction, churning history and elements of his own life into hypnotic postmodern noir of almost unrivaled fury. . . Peace, a gifted fictional ventriloquist, takes us inside the mental extremities of characters. . . --Los Angeles Times Book Review About the Author DAVID PEACE is the author of the Red Riding Quartet series and was chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. He is the author of six previous novels, published in the U.K.: the four novels of the Red Riding Quartet, GB84, and most recently The Damned Utd. He was born and raised in West Yorkshire and now lives in the East End of Tokyo with his wife and children. From AudioFile In a story with roots in a real case, a bank robbery and murder in Tokyo in 1948 have links to biological weapons testing during WWII. David Peace loves words. His writing often takes on a rhythmic poetic quality, and the narrators give the events of the novel the weight of emotion--whether they're speaking with the lyrical voices of dead robbery victims or the bureaucratic tone of official documents. The multiple narrators help sort out th