This week, the wonderfully talented Jonelle Patrick is posting in my place. Her latest novel, The Samurai’s Octopus, is out next week, April 21. It’s a truly remarkable book, one that surprised and charmed me at every turn of the page. With humor, subtlety, and deep understanding, Jonelle paints the enthralling world of eighteenth-century Japan and the lives of the oiran (courtesans), their wealthy patrons, and the pleasure district of Yoshiwara. It’s an enchanting, fascinating journey. The Samurai’s Octopus is one of the most memorable books I’ve read in years. You’re in for a treat.
Jim
Here’s Jonelle.
LOOKING FOR THE ONE PLACE ON EARTH WHERE AI AND ADS CAN’T FOLLOW YOU?
If it seems like AI and ads bombard us everywhere we go now, you’re not wrong. And if you’re desperate to escape it, you’re not alone. But there’s one place they’ll never catch up with us.
In a book.
And the best kind of book for blocking out the noise takes us far, far, away from our current reality. Traveling is the closest most of us will ever get to being a child again—encountering sights we’ve never seen before, words we’ve never heard before, food we’ve never eaten before—but not many of us can just pack up and go when modern life tips over into Too Much.
A great page-turner isn’t just a thrifty way to see the world, it takes us somewhere entirely new without enduring a long flight in veal pen class. It drops you into a different world while instantly conveying insider status, even if you’ve never been there before.
I’m talking about books like James Ziskin’s Bombay Monsoon. If that one hasn’t made it to the top of your TBR pile yet, I envy you, because you can still look forward to the pleasure of experiencing the real India through the eyes of his characters, whose virtues and vices are colored by a culture that’s both surprising and familiar. This tale plays out in many of the postcard places people travel halfway around the world to see, but it brings India to life so vibrantly that you don’t just see it, you can taste it and smell it and feel like you’ve seen that chapati vendor on the corner somewhere before.
Because the author didn’t just go to India and take notes—did you know James Ziskin lived there for years? Neither did I, until about halfway through the book, when I noticed that the details he casually tosses off like he has a million more where those came from are the kind of things only someone who has lived in a country would know. The red-orange streaks on the walls are from men spitting the paan they’ve been chewing, and a mark of luxury living is that the lights are incandescent instead of fluorescent. He knows exactly which private club a successful Indian man of a certain class would be invited to join, and that it’s furnished with a unique piece of furniture with a very…provocative…name. He captures the uncomfortable dance that westerners do around the servants that even the poorest of them must employ, and understands that when you live far from home, you are thrown together with other strangers in a strange land, and can end up with some very strange bedfellows. Including a few who might be spies, human traffickers, or worse.
But why read a book written by an outsider who lives in a foreign land instead of a native who was born there? The short answer is, you should read both. Why? Let me tell you a story.
I’ve never been to India (except in books) but I’ve lived in Japan for so long that the government finally gave in and issued me a cultural visa to stay here indefinitely and write about it.
A few years ago, I was working with a Japanese rakugo artist to translate the most famous traditional stories into English. (Rakugo is the art of traditional Japanese storytelling, where an actor kneels on stage and plays all the parts, with only a fan and hand towel as props.)
He says to me, “Okay, here’s how the next scene goes.” He stops in front of the house where the scene will take place and says, “Ah. I see everyone is already here,” then opens the door and…
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say. “Shouldn’t you open the door first, then say that thing about everybody already being there?”
“No, didn’t you see?” Puzzled look. “First I looked down, saw everyone’s shoes were already outside, then I said the line and…”
Did you catch that? Neither did I. I had to explain that the scene would make no sense to a foreign audience unless we found a way to remind them that in Japan, nobody wears their shoes inside. (Which is, by the way, why so many bestselling Japanese authors’ mystery books fall flat in translation. Foreign readers are baffled at how the detective could suddenly be so sure that the murderer is just on the other side of that locked door. X-ray vision? ESP? Divine visitation?)
If the author was once an outsider themselves, though, they’ve already surfed that learning curve and can tell the story in a way that clues readers into the cultural nuances while making them feel like they already understand them.
I hope I’ve persuaded you to take a break from being chased by apps and ads and escape into one of our books instead. As authors who write about our far-away homes in a way that invites you to share their delights more deeply than a mere vacation can deliver, we promise to take you on a technology-escaping ride in the best possible way.
Jonelle Patrick’s new mystery, The Samurai’s Octopus, is set in Japan’s Yoshiwara pleasure quarter in the 1780s, where the shogun rules with an iron fist, but women hold all the cards. It’s a place where those with the most power must beg favor from those with the least, and one resourceful girl growing up at the House of Treasures just might bring down a high-ranking murderer if she manages to find the mother she’s never known. The next time you’re feeling beset by modern life, here’s where you can see if The Samurai’s Octopus might take you somewhere you’d like to spend some time too. Without standing in a maddeningly slow TSA line.
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