Bedtime Eyes

Publishers Weekly

Originally published in Japan in the mid-1980s (before Trash), the three novellas in this harsh, vivid collection each feature a Japanese woman in a destructive relationship with an African-American man. The title novella presents Kim, a nightclub singer who falls for a navy deserter called Spoon. As Kim and Spoon's coke-fueled sexual idyll spirals into violence, Kim remains desperate to keep him. Another sadomasochistic relationship forms the core of "The Piano Player's Eyes," about a woman named Ruiko who dominates her "new toy," Leroy Jones. When he returns to Japan two years later as a noted jazz pianist, they vie for the upper hand in the relationship, with devastating results. "Jesse," a wrenching story that unfolds more warmly than the previous two, revolves around a turbulent threesome: Rick, an alcoholic; his young girlfriend, Coco; and the title character, his 11-year-old son. Coco first sees Jesse as competition, but as she realizes the father-son bond trumps that between lovers, she struggles to win the boy's approval. In stark, profane prose, Yamada complicates racial stereotypes-the hypersexual black man, the submissive or dragon lady Asian woman-as she illustrates how cultural and racial difference amplify "the extraordinary power of sexual curiosity." (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Yamada (Trash), winner of the Naoki Prize, Japan's equivalent of the Pulitzer, has become a prominent and controversial force in Japanese literature. Her powerful voice is introduced to a wider audience with the first English-language publication of these three novellas, which focus on relationships between Japanese women and black American men. The stories are stark in their realism and the obsessive and irrational sexuality of the relationships she explores pulls the reader into the emotional conflicts that make these characters and their actions unforgettable. "Bedtime Eyes," "The Piano Player's Fingers," and "Jesse" examine the dynamics of love, betrayal, and racial divide. Sexually charged and disturbing, this collection is a fitting companion to the work of American Gen-X writers like Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero) and Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City). Yamada won the prestigious Bungei Prize for Bedtime Eyes, first published as a short novel in 1985. A significant title for academic libraries.-Ronald Samul, New London, CT Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Three bleak, repetitious tales about young Japanese women entangled in sadistic sexual relationships with American men: previously untranslated 1980s work by prize-winning Japanese novelist Yamada (Trash, 1995, etc.). The title story involves a love affair between Kim, a young exotic dancer, and Spoon, a black Navy deserter. Nicknamed for the spoon he fingers in his pocket, he deals drugs and eventually gets hauled away by the military for trying to sell confidential documents. Part of Spoon's attraction to Kim is his strange otherness: his huge size, musky smell, greasy soul-food diet and disgusting manners. She enjoys being a "bad girl" and mixing pleasure with pain when they have rough sex, which must mean love. Yamada's descriptions are comically hackneyed and devoid of irony, perhaps a function of the translation (e.g., "it was far more difficult to lick his wounds than to suck his cock"; "I cried and moaned as if I were at death's door"). The next story, "The Piano Player's Fingers," follows a similar, intentionally provocative path as it describes an affair between big, black jazz piano player Leroy Jones and diminutive party girl Ruiko, who's not as vulnerable as she looks. Leroy rapturously bats her around, disappears for two years, then returns in the company of various beautiful women, to Ruiko's obsessive jealousy. For a short while, the two resume their dangerous coupling, but it ends badly. The language is silly ("Leroy's fingers, playing my body, had captured my heart"), the characters undeveloped and stereotypical. "Jesse" deviates from the other stories, which were related by naive-sounding protagonists with little sense of self-worth. A third-person narration shows Coco,the new girlfriend of a divorced American, trying to win the affection and respect of Rick's 11-year-old son, Jesse, whose mother is also Japanese. Over a period of ten days, while Rick is absent on a trip, Coco endures the boy's emotional manipulations and makes some intelligent deductions about love. Simpers along with irritating, prurient superficiality.