Daniel Clausen's Blog - Posts Tagged "ghosts-of-nagasaki"
Ghosts of Nagasaki: Advanced Review Copy
Release the sharks! Better known as critics.
I'm in the process of putting together a list of reviewers to send advanced review copies out to. If you have a blog, a column, a youtube channel or another credible means of reviewing my new novel The Ghosts of Nagasaki and would like a review copy, you can email me directly at: lexicalfunk@gmail.com.
You can also recommend a reviewer to me.
There will be paperback copies available and digital copies for review.
To be quite honest, anyone who volunteers to read a 250 page digital copy of the book would be doing me an enormous favor (saving me postage and the cost of printing out a book).
As always, thanks for your support.
Later,
I'm in the process of putting together a list of reviewers to send advanced review copies out to. If you have a blog, a column, a youtube channel or another credible means of reviewing my new novel The Ghosts of Nagasaki and would like a review copy, you can email me directly at: lexicalfunk@gmail.com.
You can also recommend a reviewer to me.
There will be paperback copies available and digital copies for review.
To be quite honest, anyone who volunteers to read a 250 page digital copy of the book would be doing me an enormous favor (saving me postage and the cost of printing out a book).
As always, thanks for your support.
Later,
Ghosts of Nagasaki: Page 1
"The long backward perspective one gets from the angle of a word processor some years later is a tricky one. As a connoisseur of biography and autobiography I know that there is nothing less reliable than someone writing about his or her own past from his or her own perspective. And for the general welfare of those who look for the bare facts of the matter, I am obliged to stamp on the very first page, in the very first paragraph, in bold italics: All fact-seekers beware."
---Ghosts of Nagasaki, page 1
---Ghosts of Nagasaki, page 1
Indie Reader Review of Ghosts of Nagasaki
Indiereader.com just posted a review of the Ghosts of Nagasaki.
You can check it out right here:
http://indiereader.com/2013/01/the-gh...
Verdict: THE GHOSTS OF NAGASAKI is an evocative and beautifully written journey about a man’s attempt to reconcile with his ghosts.
An American business analyst in Tokyo begins “the dangerous excavation of [his] past” and begins typing his memories that center around his visit to Nagasaki as an English teacher four years prior.
What starts seemingly as a trip down memory lane, recalling his relocation from America to Japan to be an English teacher in a “super-conglomerate English language school chain” and his initial experiences with beer-drinking peers, becomes an unraveling of painful memories of his first foster family, the life and death of his friend, Debra and an odyssey that crosses from the real to the surreal as he confronts the ghosts of Nagasaki –his and those from a Japanese novel.
Daniel Clausen’s writing is smooth and mesmerizing. There is a constant paradox that the protagonist is trying to reconcile in his journey. The protagonist escapes to a world filled with beauty and comfort: “my eyes overcome the poverty of my words. They fall out the window and deeper into the mountains.” This lyrical language that describes the mystique of the protagonist’s picturesque Japan and his dreamlike stream of consciousness is contrasted greatly with the narrative that focuses on the concise dialogue, cruder language and descriptions that reveal the other English teachers’ somewhat shallow and seedy experience of Japan’s nightlife and culture.
Clausen’s depiction of Japanese culture is compelling; effectively lacing the narrative with details about everything from street vending machines that dispense cans of coffee to effectively integrated details about Japanese pub life, language, and cultural tidbits.
The structure of the novel is based on several timelines that weave in and out of one another. Though some are clearer than others, it is at times difficult to follow the transitions, especially given the ambiguity about what is real and what are in his streams of consciousness.
THE GHOSTS OF NAGASAKI is an evocative and beautifully written journey about a man’s attempt to reconcile with his ghosts.
Reviewed by Maya Fleischmann for IndieReader
You can check it out right here:
http://indiereader.com/2013/01/the-gh...
Verdict: THE GHOSTS OF NAGASAKI is an evocative and beautifully written journey about a man’s attempt to reconcile with his ghosts.
An American business analyst in Tokyo begins “the dangerous excavation of [his] past” and begins typing his memories that center around his visit to Nagasaki as an English teacher four years prior.
What starts seemingly as a trip down memory lane, recalling his relocation from America to Japan to be an English teacher in a “super-conglomerate English language school chain” and his initial experiences with beer-drinking peers, becomes an unraveling of painful memories of his first foster family, the life and death of his friend, Debra and an odyssey that crosses from the real to the surreal as he confronts the ghosts of Nagasaki –his and those from a Japanese novel.
Daniel Clausen’s writing is smooth and mesmerizing. There is a constant paradox that the protagonist is trying to reconcile in his journey. The protagonist escapes to a world filled with beauty and comfort: “my eyes overcome the poverty of my words. They fall out the window and deeper into the mountains.” This lyrical language that describes the mystique of the protagonist’s picturesque Japan and his dreamlike stream of consciousness is contrasted greatly with the narrative that focuses on the concise dialogue, cruder language and descriptions that reveal the other English teachers’ somewhat shallow and seedy experience of Japan’s nightlife and culture.
Clausen’s depiction of Japanese culture is compelling; effectively lacing the narrative with details about everything from street vending machines that dispense cans of coffee to effectively integrated details about Japanese pub life, language, and cultural tidbits.
The structure of the novel is based on several timelines that weave in and out of one another. Though some are clearer than others, it is at times difficult to follow the transitions, especially given the ambiguity about what is real and what are in his streams of consciousness.
THE GHOSTS OF NAGASAKI is an evocative and beautifully written journey about a man’s attempt to reconcile with his ghosts.
Reviewed by Maya Fleischmann for IndieReader
Japan is Euphoria (Ghosts of Nagasaki Excerpt)
Japan is euphoria. The October night air coalesces into drinking, then carefree drinking, and finally reckless drinking. Soon, I’m a Travolta clone in a late-seventies discotheque. I’m performing my parody of the era. The photos and short movies Scotlandman catches on his phone are indisputable proof that this indeed happened and that I’m the culprit.
And in Japan, the country that it is, my cheesy moves are soon aggrandized and emulated. (Scotlandman has proof of this as well). The girl in front of me is soon complimenting me on my dance moves with a flurry of “jyozu”s. At one point I try to keep count and end up losing my balance, spilling beer all over Jim from Jersey. I can’t remember exactly what happens after this, but I think Jim from Jersey ends up taking a swing at me without knowing it’s me. Then I take a swing at him. And then somehow he’s hugging me and telling me what a great night it is and ordering me another beer.
Now, though, I need to pee. I make my way to the bathroom and run into Masahiro. He walks up to me with a big smile on his face. He slaps me on the back and says “friend” continuously while feeling my muscles. I don’t really know the correct way to handle this, so I just start giving him wet-willies in his ear. This seems like a perfectly harmless response, but I find his smile collapses, and the look of shock in his eyes betrays thoughts of violation. I then smile and say “tomodachi,” which is the Japanese word for “friend.” The smile returns and he gives me a hug, a flurry of “jyozu”s, and a wet-willy in return.
*If you're interested in a review copy of the Ghosts of Nagasaki, feel free to contact me via goodreads.
And in Japan, the country that it is, my cheesy moves are soon aggrandized and emulated. (Scotlandman has proof of this as well). The girl in front of me is soon complimenting me on my dance moves with a flurry of “jyozu”s. At one point I try to keep count and end up losing my balance, spilling beer all over Jim from Jersey. I can’t remember exactly what happens after this, but I think Jim from Jersey ends up taking a swing at me without knowing it’s me. Then I take a swing at him. And then somehow he’s hugging me and telling me what a great night it is and ordering me another beer.
Now, though, I need to pee. I make my way to the bathroom and run into Masahiro. He walks up to me with a big smile on his face. He slaps me on the back and says “friend” continuously while feeling my muscles. I don’t really know the correct way to handle this, so I just start giving him wet-willies in his ear. This seems like a perfectly harmless response, but I find his smile collapses, and the look of shock in his eyes betrays thoughts of violation. I then smile and say “tomodachi,” which is the Japanese word for “friend.” The smile returns and he gives me a hug, a flurry of “jyozu”s, and a wet-willy in return.
*If you're interested in a review copy of the Ghosts of Nagasaki, feel free to contact me via goodreads.
Halloween in Japan (Ghosts of Nagasaki)
Here is another excerpt from the Ghosts of Nagasaki-- enjoy!
Be sure to send me a message on goodreads if you know someone who is interested in a review copy of the book.
Halloween in Japan: an excerpt from "Ghosts of Nagasaki"
There must be something about the late October air, a crispness that draws the cats out of hiding, creates them out of the molecules in the air, causes them to hang off of balconies, crawl out of sewers, fall out of the sky, and land at our feet. They lounge, sit, or wander, some weary, some starving, others screaming their miseries in cries that cut through the night.
On our way to a Halloween party in a small club in Shianbashi, Nagasaki’s red light district, I begin to notice them for the first time. The phenomenon is disturbing enough that I say something to the Welshman. “I never noticed all of these cats here before.”
“They’re everywhere,” he says. “No one bothers to neuter their cats here, I guess. I’m usually against putting animals down. That sort of discipline and control has a way of finding its way to the human population, if you know what I mean. This usually bodes poorly for bottom-of-the-gene-poolers like you and me, but I think you could make a good case for it here.”
Jim from Jersey is listening in on our conversation. “It’s tragic,” he says. “Half of them have split ears, cut up bellies, or are just plain starving to death. Don’t get me wrong. I think Nagasaki is a great place to live, but someone needs to do something about these cats.”
“I wonder how they all make it,” I say.
“Well mate, someday you’ll realize that there’s no hole or corner of the world too filthy for someone or something to crawl into it. That usually applies more to the homo sapien population than the animals,” the Welshman says.
There are five of us: the Welshman, myself, Jim from Jersey, Scotlandman, and the new guy. Walking down Shianbashi, half of us wearing cheap vampire teeth, we look a bit like the international version of The Lost Boys. Love that movie: Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, vampires, and who could forget the old grandpa in the movie who gets the last line. What was that line? Something like: “If there was one thing I could never stand about this town, it was all the damn vampires.”
Out of all of us, Scotlandman is the only one who has put any effort into his costume. He’s dressed as the Highlander, sword, kilt and all. The rest of us have barely done anything. I have vampire teeth; the Welshman wears an undersized Superman T-shirt that shows off the beer belly in his midsection along with a small cape; Jim from Jersey has on a wig with Jheri curls, as well as the same cheap vampire teeth I wear. The new guy doesn’t really wear anything, but we’ve hooked him up with some vampire teeth in case he decides to change his mind.
I look at Jim from Jersey.
“And who are you supposed to be, Jim?”
“I’m a vampire Rick James, bitch.”
As we close in on our destination, we pass three indolent cats lounging on the side of the street. One has a scratched ear and looks emaciated, another seems to wander around lazily, but the third is fat and just lies there. I point them out to Jim from Jersey who is busy adjusting his hundred-yen-store cape, but he just shrugs it off nonchalantly.
“Just leave them alone. They’re not bothering anyone.”
Mikey Welsh looks closely at the fat one. “This one reminds me of one of my mates from Cardiff―brutal motherfucker. I’m going to call him Roscoe. I bet he pimps out the others who are heroin addicts.” He turns to address Roscoe. “How you doin’ today, Roscoe? Beaten up any lazy whores this evening? Do you ever get to enjoy the product or are you just the pusher, fair and true?”
Roscoe ignores us, his eyelids moving up and down, his violent pimp laziness in full swing.
“Well,” I say. “I have to admit, Roscoe has the look down.”
As we make our way closer to the club, I become transfixed by Jim from Jersey’s wig. Black with lustrous curls, it’s just the kind of gaudy kitsch we need to give our party class.
“Jim, where did you get that wig?” I ask.
“Believe it or not, I found this wig in my apartment.”
“You found a wig in your apartment?”
“Yeah, it was just lying around.”
“You found it, and now you’re wearing it?”
He shrugs off my rhetorical question. “Oh come on. I washed it out and bleached the inside. It’s not like crawling with lice or anything.”
“There’s a ton of crap in the apartment that people have just left lying around,” Scotlandman says. “I guess we shouldn’t complain. After all, I got a free stereo out of it. And, of course, Jim got that classy wig. But there is also a lot of useless crap, like old sneakers, old clothes, expired condoms and what not. We should really think about throwing it out, huh,” he says addressing Jim and the new guy. Jim shrugs, and the new guy doesn’t seem quite sure what to say.
“I wonder how many generations of teachers’ crap are lying around in our apartment,” I say to the Welshman.
“Oh God, mate. You should see some of the stuff I threw out from the refrigerator the other day. I found these pickles in the back of the fridge. When I pulled them out they looked like bright yellow turds. I think one of them had actually formed a mouth and was pleading for its life as I was throwing it out. I actually took pictures of them.” The Welshman pulls out his phone and shows us pictures of the pickles.
We all stop on the sidewalk and move out of the way to let some bystanders walk by. We take turns looking at the Welshman’s picture. None of us can quite make out a mouth, but the bright yellow color itself is pretty disturbing.
As I’m staring at the picture of the yellow, turd-like pickles, the new guy pipes up. “I found some guy’s diary in my apartment when I first got here.” Up until this point, the new guy has been rather quiet. “I found it in one of the drawers as I was unpacking.”
“You read it?” Jim asks.
“Just a little,” he says. “I didn’t know what it was.”
“Aw, probably one of the teachers that was there before you, trying to write his novel or some such wank,” the Welshman ventures. “You get a lot of those over here, wannabe writers and failed something-or-others. I reckon we’re all probably failed novelists or poets, or something of that sort,” the Welshman proclaims. “Who else here fancies himself an artist or a writer?”
Only Jim from Jersey raises his hand in confirmation.
“Just you and me, aye Jimbo? Well, what the hell are the rest of you doing here?” the Welshman says in disbelief. “Go fuck off to business school or get your law degrees already. Jim, what do you write?”
“Ummm, short stories mostly.” He stops for a moment and thinks. “You know what, I bet the diary is Travis’s. A bit of a weird fellow. Stayed to himself, played guitar alone in his room quite a bit, and then ended up just leaving one day.”
“He just left?” I say.
“Yeah, I guess it happens every once in a while to some of the new people. Usually, it’s the twitchy ones. I guess they just freak out, especially if they’re not used to living on their own.”
We all try our best not to look at the new guy.
“So, what did it say then?” the Welshman asks.
“Don’t you think that’s personal?” the new guy says.
“I most certainly do,” the Welshman replies. “But you’re the cunt who brought it up, now aren’t you? So you can’t just leave us hanging. Now, what did it say?”
The new guy mulls it over.
“Oh come on,” I say. “I mean it’s not like we’re ever going to see this guy Travis again.”
The new guy looks like he’s thinking it over. “Well, like I only skimmed a few pages, but it said some stuff about ghosts and an island…”
***
Ghosts? An island? In my apartment in Tokyo something rings familiar. I stop to stare out the window. Is that really what the new guy said? When I try to think about what the words “island” and “ghosts” signify, however, something strange happens. I put my hand on the window and try to write the two words in kanji on the glass with my finger, and when I do, I’m back at my desk continuing to type these words.
***
“Yeah, that seems like Travis,” Jim says. “He got here, played guitar in his room alone for like three weeks, and babbled on about following the lost gods of rock to an island. Then one day he’s gone. I swear, every time I saw him come out of his room it was like he was stoned. Even at work, he would like stare out into space. Then he would throw up devil signs and start doing air guitar.”
“Sounds like a cool fucking dude,” the Welshman says. “Hey, I got an idea. We should wait till the end of the pay period, when none of us have any money, and go over to you guys’ place and read this guy’s diary. Like get drunk and really perform the thing. What do you reckon?”
Jim and Scotlandman shake their heads like the Welshman has said something gravely offensive. Personally, I don’t find anything that offensive about the idea. From there, however, the subject drops.
We all look around trying to figure out whether to start walking or to keep standing on the sidewalk loitering without a cause.
“Well, I guess we should get on with it then,” the Welshman says, eventually.
And so we do. As we walk, we’re all pretty quiet until the Welshman looks suspiciously at Scotlandman and me. “Let me guess, a failed soccer player and a ballet dancer.”
I look over his way and, off guard, almost trip on a cat.
“Well, I see why the ballet thing never panned out,” the Welshman quips.
Mikey looks over at the new guy. “And you, graphic designer or someone who wants to make the next role-playing game.”
The new guy raises his head in a way that suggests the Welshman might have hit on something.
Be sure to send me a message on goodreads if you know someone who is interested in a review copy of the book.
Halloween in Japan: an excerpt from "Ghosts of Nagasaki"
There must be something about the late October air, a crispness that draws the cats out of hiding, creates them out of the molecules in the air, causes them to hang off of balconies, crawl out of sewers, fall out of the sky, and land at our feet. They lounge, sit, or wander, some weary, some starving, others screaming their miseries in cries that cut through the night.
On our way to a Halloween party in a small club in Shianbashi, Nagasaki’s red light district, I begin to notice them for the first time. The phenomenon is disturbing enough that I say something to the Welshman. “I never noticed all of these cats here before.”
“They’re everywhere,” he says. “No one bothers to neuter their cats here, I guess. I’m usually against putting animals down. That sort of discipline and control has a way of finding its way to the human population, if you know what I mean. This usually bodes poorly for bottom-of-the-gene-poolers like you and me, but I think you could make a good case for it here.”
Jim from Jersey is listening in on our conversation. “It’s tragic,” he says. “Half of them have split ears, cut up bellies, or are just plain starving to death. Don’t get me wrong. I think Nagasaki is a great place to live, but someone needs to do something about these cats.”
“I wonder how they all make it,” I say.
“Well mate, someday you’ll realize that there’s no hole or corner of the world too filthy for someone or something to crawl into it. That usually applies more to the homo sapien population than the animals,” the Welshman says.
There are five of us: the Welshman, myself, Jim from Jersey, Scotlandman, and the new guy. Walking down Shianbashi, half of us wearing cheap vampire teeth, we look a bit like the international version of The Lost Boys. Love that movie: Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, vampires, and who could forget the old grandpa in the movie who gets the last line. What was that line? Something like: “If there was one thing I could never stand about this town, it was all the damn vampires.”
Out of all of us, Scotlandman is the only one who has put any effort into his costume. He’s dressed as the Highlander, sword, kilt and all. The rest of us have barely done anything. I have vampire teeth; the Welshman wears an undersized Superman T-shirt that shows off the beer belly in his midsection along with a small cape; Jim from Jersey has on a wig with Jheri curls, as well as the same cheap vampire teeth I wear. The new guy doesn’t really wear anything, but we’ve hooked him up with some vampire teeth in case he decides to change his mind.
I look at Jim from Jersey.
“And who are you supposed to be, Jim?”
“I’m a vampire Rick James, bitch.”
As we close in on our destination, we pass three indolent cats lounging on the side of the street. One has a scratched ear and looks emaciated, another seems to wander around lazily, but the third is fat and just lies there. I point them out to Jim from Jersey who is busy adjusting his hundred-yen-store cape, but he just shrugs it off nonchalantly.
“Just leave them alone. They’re not bothering anyone.”
Mikey Welsh looks closely at the fat one. “This one reminds me of one of my mates from Cardiff―brutal motherfucker. I’m going to call him Roscoe. I bet he pimps out the others who are heroin addicts.” He turns to address Roscoe. “How you doin’ today, Roscoe? Beaten up any lazy whores this evening? Do you ever get to enjoy the product or are you just the pusher, fair and true?”
Roscoe ignores us, his eyelids moving up and down, his violent pimp laziness in full swing.
“Well,” I say. “I have to admit, Roscoe has the look down.”
As we make our way closer to the club, I become transfixed by Jim from Jersey’s wig. Black with lustrous curls, it’s just the kind of gaudy kitsch we need to give our party class.
“Jim, where did you get that wig?” I ask.
“Believe it or not, I found this wig in my apartment.”
“You found a wig in your apartment?”
“Yeah, it was just lying around.”
“You found it, and now you’re wearing it?”
He shrugs off my rhetorical question. “Oh come on. I washed it out and bleached the inside. It’s not like crawling with lice or anything.”
“There’s a ton of crap in the apartment that people have just left lying around,” Scotlandman says. “I guess we shouldn’t complain. After all, I got a free stereo out of it. And, of course, Jim got that classy wig. But there is also a lot of useless crap, like old sneakers, old clothes, expired condoms and what not. We should really think about throwing it out, huh,” he says addressing Jim and the new guy. Jim shrugs, and the new guy doesn’t seem quite sure what to say.
“I wonder how many generations of teachers’ crap are lying around in our apartment,” I say to the Welshman.
“Oh God, mate. You should see some of the stuff I threw out from the refrigerator the other day. I found these pickles in the back of the fridge. When I pulled them out they looked like bright yellow turds. I think one of them had actually formed a mouth and was pleading for its life as I was throwing it out. I actually took pictures of them.” The Welshman pulls out his phone and shows us pictures of the pickles.
We all stop on the sidewalk and move out of the way to let some bystanders walk by. We take turns looking at the Welshman’s picture. None of us can quite make out a mouth, but the bright yellow color itself is pretty disturbing.
As I’m staring at the picture of the yellow, turd-like pickles, the new guy pipes up. “I found some guy’s diary in my apartment when I first got here.” Up until this point, the new guy has been rather quiet. “I found it in one of the drawers as I was unpacking.”
“You read it?” Jim asks.
“Just a little,” he says. “I didn’t know what it was.”
“Aw, probably one of the teachers that was there before you, trying to write his novel or some such wank,” the Welshman ventures. “You get a lot of those over here, wannabe writers and failed something-or-others. I reckon we’re all probably failed novelists or poets, or something of that sort,” the Welshman proclaims. “Who else here fancies himself an artist or a writer?”
Only Jim from Jersey raises his hand in confirmation.
“Just you and me, aye Jimbo? Well, what the hell are the rest of you doing here?” the Welshman says in disbelief. “Go fuck off to business school or get your law degrees already. Jim, what do you write?”
“Ummm, short stories mostly.” He stops for a moment and thinks. “You know what, I bet the diary is Travis’s. A bit of a weird fellow. Stayed to himself, played guitar alone in his room quite a bit, and then ended up just leaving one day.”
“He just left?” I say.
“Yeah, I guess it happens every once in a while to some of the new people. Usually, it’s the twitchy ones. I guess they just freak out, especially if they’re not used to living on their own.”
We all try our best not to look at the new guy.
“So, what did it say then?” the Welshman asks.
“Don’t you think that’s personal?” the new guy says.
“I most certainly do,” the Welshman replies. “But you’re the cunt who brought it up, now aren’t you? So you can’t just leave us hanging. Now, what did it say?”
The new guy mulls it over.
“Oh come on,” I say. “I mean it’s not like we’re ever going to see this guy Travis again.”
The new guy looks like he’s thinking it over. “Well, like I only skimmed a few pages, but it said some stuff about ghosts and an island…”
***
Ghosts? An island? In my apartment in Tokyo something rings familiar. I stop to stare out the window. Is that really what the new guy said? When I try to think about what the words “island” and “ghosts” signify, however, something strange happens. I put my hand on the window and try to write the two words in kanji on the glass with my finger, and when I do, I’m back at my desk continuing to type these words.
***
“Yeah, that seems like Travis,” Jim says. “He got here, played guitar in his room alone for like three weeks, and babbled on about following the lost gods of rock to an island. Then one day he’s gone. I swear, every time I saw him come out of his room it was like he was stoned. Even at work, he would like stare out into space. Then he would throw up devil signs and start doing air guitar.”
“Sounds like a cool fucking dude,” the Welshman says. “Hey, I got an idea. We should wait till the end of the pay period, when none of us have any money, and go over to you guys’ place and read this guy’s diary. Like get drunk and really perform the thing. What do you reckon?”
Jim and Scotlandman shake their heads like the Welshman has said something gravely offensive. Personally, I don’t find anything that offensive about the idea. From there, however, the subject drops.
We all look around trying to figure out whether to start walking or to keep standing on the sidewalk loitering without a cause.
“Well, I guess we should get on with it then,” the Welshman says, eventually.
And so we do. As we walk, we’re all pretty quiet until the Welshman looks suspiciously at Scotlandman and me. “Let me guess, a failed soccer player and a ballet dancer.”
I look over his way and, off guard, almost trip on a cat.
“Well, I see why the ballet thing never panned out,” the Welshman quips.
Mikey looks over at the new guy. “And you, graphic designer or someone who wants to make the next role-playing game.”
The new guy raises his head in a way that suggests the Welshman might have hit on something.
Nagasaki (Ghosts of Nagasaki Excerpt)
In my Tokyo office, at two o’clock on a Thursday, I find that I can’t get anything done.
Though I’m busy, though I whack away at my laptop keys, the only thing I’m working on is my blasted memoir. I take frequent coffee breaks and pace nervously. The section manager comes to chat me up about some new IPO or some new major player in the market. He talks about the rising influence of certain hedge funds or some company he’s bullish on. I nod my head, but in truth he doesn’t exist. Nothing around me exists. At least not the way Nagasaki exists.
As I write about Nagasaki, my life in Tokyo fades into a monochrome background. I walk back to my desk. The office lady that has a crush on me shows up to compliment me on something or other, but I can’t even acknowledge her existence. She talks about her sister. Her sister’s in trouble and needs to get a job. She needs to stop mooching off their parents. Oh, and how have I been lately?
And then, I can’t even hear what she’s saying. It’s not her Japanese that’s confusing. It’s the smallness of her voice. It comes from somewhere far away, from that place behind the back of her throat, a place I’m not sure exists.
It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I’m too focused on my writing. My bloody, obsessive writing. My reports, whatever they’re supposed to be about, are late. Nobody seems to notice. They all point to me and say their “sugoi”s (fantastic!) and what not, because to the casual observer it looks like I’m deep into my project.
And I am. The dangerous excavation of my past is well under way. Its currents will no doubt lead me to ever more constant coffee breaks. I will nod at people with their far-off voices from places that don’t exist. I will nod because that is the only meaningful action I can manage―and because Nagasaki is more real than anything else inside the break room.
Though I’m busy, though I whack away at my laptop keys, the only thing I’m working on is my blasted memoir. I take frequent coffee breaks and pace nervously. The section manager comes to chat me up about some new IPO or some new major player in the market. He talks about the rising influence of certain hedge funds or some company he’s bullish on. I nod my head, but in truth he doesn’t exist. Nothing around me exists. At least not the way Nagasaki exists.
As I write about Nagasaki, my life in Tokyo fades into a monochrome background. I walk back to my desk. The office lady that has a crush on me shows up to compliment me on something or other, but I can’t even acknowledge her existence. She talks about her sister. Her sister’s in trouble and needs to get a job. She needs to stop mooching off their parents. Oh, and how have I been lately?
And then, I can’t even hear what she’s saying. It’s not her Japanese that’s confusing. It’s the smallness of her voice. It comes from somewhere far away, from that place behind the back of her throat, a place I’m not sure exists.
It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I’m too focused on my writing. My bloody, obsessive writing. My reports, whatever they’re supposed to be about, are late. Nobody seems to notice. They all point to me and say their “sugoi”s (fantastic!) and what not, because to the casual observer it looks like I’m deep into my project.
And I am. The dangerous excavation of my past is well under way. Its currents will no doubt lead me to ever more constant coffee breaks. I will nod at people with their far-off voices from places that don’t exist. I will nod because that is the only meaningful action I can manage―and because Nagasaki is more real than anything else inside the break room.
Me and Her (Ghosts of Nagasaki Excerpt)
For the short period of time after she’s discharged, Chuck insists on changing her diaper. And it’s as if all the time they had spent together, the pageantry that had gone into being husband and wife, the plans they had made, the sweetness whispered into each other’s ears, had all evaporated. Nothing in the way he moves shows that he is still married; no, this is charity.
He changes her diaper, spoon feeds her, and then somehow, fifteen or twenty minutes later, finds himself in front of me or another person, blaming Debra for what’s happening. If only she’d taken more time to take care of herself. . . If only she had gone to the doctor earlier and gotten herself checked out. . . If only she’d been more on top of her medical coverage . . .
I can’t prove it, but I believe he’s having an affair. It would explain things: why he wants her to stay in the hospital; why he hadn’t come by so often when she was in the hospital; it would explain why he projects so much guilt onto her.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I’m having a hard enough time trying not to let my own life fall apart. When I think about it now, though, I get pissed. Because there was a time in my life when I had a lot less to lose and would have slugged a guy like Chuck in a second. Though he changed her diaper, he never saw how he was partially responsible for the cycle of shit. He judged me by his own rigorous, divinely ordained standards that left the world exactly the same and amounted to nothing better than a night in bed with the temp that he would so nobly marry several months later, saying, “We all have to move on sometime.”
I wanted to thrust a big glob of shit in his face, because the truth is in the shit. I wanted to idolize Debra with her shit-filled diaper, and say to the world: this is my goddess. I couldn’t say this to him; he was a moralist, I was an ethicist; it was about party and politics. Money? Kind of. Power? Yes. But it was also about the angles. Him, the angles of privilege and charity; me, the angle of: if I don’t play the game, I’ll never make it out of poverty.
And there she was, Debra. She was in the shadows and I could feel her there. Put down your fists, she says. Lay down those fighting words. Let the anger pass, because your anger can’t help you here. Justice is in rehab, and the Lord will take care of the rest. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord and the Lord will trust in you.
As Debra coughed up slime and the ambulance drivers bickered about whether to put her in a wheelchair or whether to leave her on a stretcher, I could see in Debra’s half-conscious eyes that she was tired of it all. Wherever we looked, the impulse to help had been replaced by cold, cruel process. It was routine that made everything so terrible and cartoon-like. At almost any time and every point I wanted to shake them and make them realize: This is a human; she is more than a human.
When Debra finally passed, when she let out that last gasp of breath and then lay still―the first thing I wanted to do was laugh.
That’s it? I wanted to say. That’s how the exalted of the earth die? I wanted to rush out of the room and burst into laughter. I wanted to stop the next person I saw and explain it to them in a way that made them get the joke. But in the end, it was just me and her. Chuck was there, but in the end, it was just me and her.
He changes her diaper, spoon feeds her, and then somehow, fifteen or twenty minutes later, finds himself in front of me or another person, blaming Debra for what’s happening. If only she’d taken more time to take care of herself. . . If only she had gone to the doctor earlier and gotten herself checked out. . . If only she’d been more on top of her medical coverage . . .
I can’t prove it, but I believe he’s having an affair. It would explain things: why he wants her to stay in the hospital; why he hadn’t come by so often when she was in the hospital; it would explain why he projects so much guilt onto her.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I’m having a hard enough time trying not to let my own life fall apart. When I think about it now, though, I get pissed. Because there was a time in my life when I had a lot less to lose and would have slugged a guy like Chuck in a second. Though he changed her diaper, he never saw how he was partially responsible for the cycle of shit. He judged me by his own rigorous, divinely ordained standards that left the world exactly the same and amounted to nothing better than a night in bed with the temp that he would so nobly marry several months later, saying, “We all have to move on sometime.”
I wanted to thrust a big glob of shit in his face, because the truth is in the shit. I wanted to idolize Debra with her shit-filled diaper, and say to the world: this is my goddess. I couldn’t say this to him; he was a moralist, I was an ethicist; it was about party and politics. Money? Kind of. Power? Yes. But it was also about the angles. Him, the angles of privilege and charity; me, the angle of: if I don’t play the game, I’ll never make it out of poverty.
And there she was, Debra. She was in the shadows and I could feel her there. Put down your fists, she says. Lay down those fighting words. Let the anger pass, because your anger can’t help you here. Justice is in rehab, and the Lord will take care of the rest. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord and the Lord will trust in you.
As Debra coughed up slime and the ambulance drivers bickered about whether to put her in a wheelchair or whether to leave her on a stretcher, I could see in Debra’s half-conscious eyes that she was tired of it all. Wherever we looked, the impulse to help had been replaced by cold, cruel process. It was routine that made everything so terrible and cartoon-like. At almost any time and every point I wanted to shake them and make them realize: This is a human; she is more than a human.
When Debra finally passed, when she let out that last gasp of breath and then lay still―the first thing I wanted to do was laugh.
That’s it? I wanted to say. That’s how the exalted of the earth die? I wanted to rush out of the room and burst into laughter. I wanted to stop the next person I saw and explain it to them in a way that made them get the joke. But in the end, it was just me and her. Chuck was there, but in the end, it was just me and her.
Ghosts of Nagasaki (Novel Excerpt) - Debra
*(The following is an excerpt from my novel "The Ghosts of Nagasaki")
I am sixteen. Up until this point I’ve developed three rules of thumb: first, never love anything too much; second, always keep moving and anticipate the worst; and third, a direct result of my experience in my first foster home, fear the evangelicals. The first time I see her, standing next to her car dealership-owning man, Chuck, I think of rule number three and cringe. She is a friend of one of the administrators at child services who has taken a liking to me. One day out of the blue, the administrator tells me that a family is coming in to see me. I shrug. Then I wait.
I soon find out what I’ve suspected all along. She is the worst possible mix for me, one of those people who’s getting married for the second or third time. Fresh start and all that. And she loves her Bible. Praise Jesus! Beyond that, I assume she will be like every other adult in my short lifespan―full of her own self-righteousness.
The moment I see them sitting together, I think immediately that it’s entirely possible that after only three months as husband and wife I am being called on as the mechanism to save their marriage. I’m not very old, but I’m smart enough to know when I’m headed for a shit storm. And here they are: she, with her broad smile, the energetic talk; him, trying so hard to sound like the alpha male, hard and in charge. It all makes it so easy to dismiss them both as the latest drop in the evangelical bucket.
“Don’t worry. You’ll have a good home, a chance at a life. And we won’t hold any of your past over your head,” she promises. Then she gets to asking me about school. I answer obediently and truthfully about my taste for some Hemingway novels. I like his simple writing and the fact that he writes a lot about poor people.
Debra nods. The car dealership man, Chuck, tries hard not to look out of place. He’s sweating. The air conditioner in the meeting room is broken again—but I think it’s the vibe of the foster home that gets to him the most. Maybe it reminds him that a part of the population has to survive off public money, that that public money doesn’t go very far, and that my and every other kid’s life in this building basically sucks. Or maybe it’s just me that bothers him.
“Who turned you on to books, young man?” Debra asks.
“My first foster parents bought me books. They wouldn’t let me watch TV.”
“That sounds like a pretty reasonable idea, now doesn’t it?”
I keep my mouth shut. The fourth rule is unspoken, but if I had to say it, it would be: never to talk about my first foster family. I had already embarked on the long process of disappearing them from my memory. It was better to just leave them in the past to rot than to let them fester and bleed out into the real world.
“What do you read?”
“Novels. A little bit of history here and there, and biographies, lots of biographies.”
“Do you like school?” Debra asks.
“Yeah, sometimes it’s okay, but I don’t think anyone knows I exist.”
Chuck is about to say something. Maybe a crack about that being nonsense.
“Is that why you act up?”
“I don’t know why I act up,” I say honestly. “But I’ve been trying to be better. My grades are pretty good too, but it’s hard for me to concentrate because the yelling doesn’t stop.”
“Whose yelling?” Debra asks.
I shrug. “Them.” She doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but it doesn’t take long. Soon, someone in the background starts yelling about something. Debra doesn’t hear it, but I do. I let my eyes just sort of wander, and I can hear a dead silence falling on us. Car dealership man Chuck is shifting around in his seat, but Debra lets out a simple smile.
“You know something,” she says, looking me in the eyes with something that could be empathy, “you’re an old soul.”
And just like that, she changes the balance of our relationship. She must have been a pro at offsetting troubled young people with her compliments. How many kids had she complimented as being wise, or having old souls, or being brilliant? How often did she start off with that same smile as a setup for her classic one-liners?
I had to admit, though, she drew me in. I could see that when we really started talking, when she started on the books, and asking me which ones I liked, she wasn’t just talking at me. She genuinely wanted to know.
That was Debra.
I am sixteen. Up until this point I’ve developed three rules of thumb: first, never love anything too much; second, always keep moving and anticipate the worst; and third, a direct result of my experience in my first foster home, fear the evangelicals. The first time I see her, standing next to her car dealership-owning man, Chuck, I think of rule number three and cringe. She is a friend of one of the administrators at child services who has taken a liking to me. One day out of the blue, the administrator tells me that a family is coming in to see me. I shrug. Then I wait.
I soon find out what I’ve suspected all along. She is the worst possible mix for me, one of those people who’s getting married for the second or third time. Fresh start and all that. And she loves her Bible. Praise Jesus! Beyond that, I assume she will be like every other adult in my short lifespan―full of her own self-righteousness.
The moment I see them sitting together, I think immediately that it’s entirely possible that after only three months as husband and wife I am being called on as the mechanism to save their marriage. I’m not very old, but I’m smart enough to know when I’m headed for a shit storm. And here they are: she, with her broad smile, the energetic talk; him, trying so hard to sound like the alpha male, hard and in charge. It all makes it so easy to dismiss them both as the latest drop in the evangelical bucket.
“Don’t worry. You’ll have a good home, a chance at a life. And we won’t hold any of your past over your head,” she promises. Then she gets to asking me about school. I answer obediently and truthfully about my taste for some Hemingway novels. I like his simple writing and the fact that he writes a lot about poor people.
Debra nods. The car dealership man, Chuck, tries hard not to look out of place. He’s sweating. The air conditioner in the meeting room is broken again—but I think it’s the vibe of the foster home that gets to him the most. Maybe it reminds him that a part of the population has to survive off public money, that that public money doesn’t go very far, and that my and every other kid’s life in this building basically sucks. Or maybe it’s just me that bothers him.
“Who turned you on to books, young man?” Debra asks.
“My first foster parents bought me books. They wouldn’t let me watch TV.”
“That sounds like a pretty reasonable idea, now doesn’t it?”
I keep my mouth shut. The fourth rule is unspoken, but if I had to say it, it would be: never to talk about my first foster family. I had already embarked on the long process of disappearing them from my memory. It was better to just leave them in the past to rot than to let them fester and bleed out into the real world.
“What do you read?”
“Novels. A little bit of history here and there, and biographies, lots of biographies.”
“Do you like school?” Debra asks.
“Yeah, sometimes it’s okay, but I don’t think anyone knows I exist.”
Chuck is about to say something. Maybe a crack about that being nonsense.
“Is that why you act up?”
“I don’t know why I act up,” I say honestly. “But I’ve been trying to be better. My grades are pretty good too, but it’s hard for me to concentrate because the yelling doesn’t stop.”
“Whose yelling?” Debra asks.
I shrug. “Them.” She doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but it doesn’t take long. Soon, someone in the background starts yelling about something. Debra doesn’t hear it, but I do. I let my eyes just sort of wander, and I can hear a dead silence falling on us. Car dealership man Chuck is shifting around in his seat, but Debra lets out a simple smile.
“You know something,” she says, looking me in the eyes with something that could be empathy, “you’re an old soul.”
And just like that, she changes the balance of our relationship. She must have been a pro at offsetting troubled young people with her compliments. How many kids had she complimented as being wise, or having old souls, or being brilliant? How often did she start off with that same smile as a setup for her classic one-liners?
I had to admit, though, she drew me in. I could see that when we really started talking, when she started on the books, and asking me which ones I liked, she wasn’t just talking at me. She genuinely wanted to know.
That was Debra.
My Center Grows Cold and Heavy (Ghosts of Nagasaki)
My center grows cold and heavy. In Nagasaki, the winter months move on slowly. With my cast iron heart planted firmly in my chest, I find that simple tasks have now become difficult: getting out of bed, grooming myself, getting ready for work. The heater has been on the fritz—that, or the Welshman and I are simply too stupid to read the Japanese on the remote and can’t figure out how to turn it on. After fiddling with the remote for the millionth time, I set the thing down and forget about it. I crawl into the warmth of my comforter and futon mattress.
And our lives? What can I say? The parade of nomihodais and merriment continues, except that people find themselves going home earlier and dancing less in the streets. The cold, wet rain makes sure of that. My students continue to struggle obsessively with tenses, articles, and the various contradictions and disappointments of their lives in ways that are in equal measures heroic and unnerving. I find that old adage about people leading lives of quiet desperation hangs over my classroom more often than I’d like.
Then there are the ghosts. More of them now, some are not ghosts at all, but visions of old professors and friends. Others are full-fledged spirits, union-certified and struggling to make their quotas in haunting. They show up, hang around my classes, stare at me, or on occasion try to scare me as I’m coming out of the tub. Most of the time, however, I find them just lounging around on coffee break.
Debra comes around now more than ever. The sweet woman that she is, when she’s not creeping around corners or jumping out of dark spaces, she finds the time to do a bit of knitting and sewing, fixing a little tear here or putting on a new button there. And the everydayness of it all makes the weight in my heart space a bit more unbearable.
Every once in a while I try to talk to her. I try to say, “Hey Debra,” or “How’s the afterlife treating you?” or “You don’t look half bad for a woman who’s spent some time in the afterworld.” But I falter. I find there is nothing in the back of my throat that can make its way out. And so she stays, and the ghosts stay, and my center grows heavier.
You can purchase a copy of Ghosts of Nagasaki here: http://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Nagasaki...
And our lives? What can I say? The parade of nomihodais and merriment continues, except that people find themselves going home earlier and dancing less in the streets. The cold, wet rain makes sure of that. My students continue to struggle obsessively with tenses, articles, and the various contradictions and disappointments of their lives in ways that are in equal measures heroic and unnerving. I find that old adage about people leading lives of quiet desperation hangs over my classroom more often than I’d like.
Then there are the ghosts. More of them now, some are not ghosts at all, but visions of old professors and friends. Others are full-fledged spirits, union-certified and struggling to make their quotas in haunting. They show up, hang around my classes, stare at me, or on occasion try to scare me as I’m coming out of the tub. Most of the time, however, I find them just lounging around on coffee break.
Debra comes around now more than ever. The sweet woman that she is, when she’s not creeping around corners or jumping out of dark spaces, she finds the time to do a bit of knitting and sewing, fixing a little tear here or putting on a new button there. And the everydayness of it all makes the weight in my heart space a bit more unbearable.
Every once in a while I try to talk to her. I try to say, “Hey Debra,” or “How’s the afterlife treating you?” or “You don’t look half bad for a woman who’s spent some time in the afterworld.” But I falter. I find there is nothing in the back of my throat that can make its way out. And so she stays, and the ghosts stay, and my center grows heavier.
You can purchase a copy of Ghosts of Nagasaki here: http://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Nagasaki...
Magic (from Ghosts of Nagasaki)
I invite everyone to read "Magic", an excerpt from "The Ghosts of Nagasaki."
https://thebookendsreview.com/2015/08...
https://thebookendsreview.com/2015/08...
