Cherry Whip

<p> Originally released 20 years ago this superb novel returns in a well-deserved reissue. ...Hiroshi's recovery family dynamics and inner life are all fascinatingly described in rich detail. This edition features a new foreword and afterword offering insightful context on how the author's own time in Japan inspired this irreverent poignant and wondrously odd tale. <em>- Alexander Moran Booklist (Starred Review)</em></p><p><strong>The poignant and hilarious tale of a Japanese musician's struggles with genius and illness in a vividly realized New York City.</strong></p><p>From the moment the deeply eccentric Hiroshi a budding Japanese jazz genius hits American ground the ground starts hitting back with everything it's got -- just as he is to begin a high-profile gig that promises to make his career.</p><p>Hiroshi's experiences in New York are exhilarating and humiliating thrilling and traumatic in equal measure. As the quirky disaster-prone and language- and music-obsessed artist struggles to recover both emotionally and physically from a paralyzing illness that may render him unable to ever again play his clarinet he must also cope with the long-distance betrayal of his beautiful girlfriend and with his sublimated guilt over his role in the death of his sister many years ago at the dusty end of a mysterious route she called The Forbidden Pathway in the tiny country town in Japan where they grew up.</p><p>This seriocomic novel densely populated with quirky characters is a love letter to New York City and to the English language. It also shines a spotlight on one fairly peculiar corner of the Japanese sensibility embodied in its hyperconscious but absentminded sensual but abstracted intelligent but terribly innocent hero a Japanese Lucky Jim who comes to terms with becoming an adult and respecting his gifts against the dual backgrounds of a mysterious pathway in Japan which now exists only in his memory and what he lovingly describes as the filthy charm of New York City in the only too-real present day.</p>