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Interview and Book Giveaway: THE LAST TRAIN by Michael Pronko

July 24, 2017

“Gripping and suspenseful, this fast-paced thriller unfolds on the streets of Tokyo, where a clever and cold-blooded killer exacts revenge.” —Booklife Prize Rating 10.00

THE LAST TRAIN

Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. When an American businessman turns up dead, he’s called out to the site of a grisly murder—or is it just suicide? A slip or jump off the train platform? A security camera video suggests the killer was a woman, but in Japan, that seems unlikely. Hiroshi and ex-sumo wrestler-turned-detective Sakaguchi scour Tokyo’s sacred temples, skyscraper offices and industrial wastelands to find out what was in the past of one Tokyo woman that drove her to murder.

Genre: Mystery & Thriller  | Content Rating: PG-13

“For anyone who loves crime and cop novels, or Japanophiles in general, this is a terrific thriller. Fans of Barry Eisler’s early novels will find the same satisfactions here.”  ~Blue Ink Review, starred review

Q&A with MICHAEL PRONKO

What is your favorite scene in The Last Train?

I love the ending, but don’t want to spoil anything. Overall, I like the scenes in the temples. Inside the temple grounds, which can be sprawling in Japan (no taxes), it’s always a shift in consciousness. The temples are calm, traditional, formal, quiet, while the rest of Tokyo is the opposite. The temples are strikingly beautiful, designed by principles of balance and spirituality and humanity. Temples create a sacred space where you become more spiritual. The scene I like best is a funeral where the bad guy, a femme fatale named Michiko, is watching the funeral she’s responsible for. The detective, Hiroshi, is there to see who’s at the wedding. It’s still not clear to Hiroshi if the deceased American committed suicide or was killed. So, Hiroshi is watching a Japanese-style funeral for an American man and looking over at a beautiful Japanese woman sitting to the side and at the friends of the dead man and trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s pouring down rain, so everyone’s under umbrellas, making it more confused. It’s life, death, and our human attempt at figuring out what’s going on in the world.

What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?

In addition to writing about the opposite sex, the antagonist, Michiko, is from a different culture, Japan, and from a working-class family. Her reasons for doing what she does and thinking what she thinks and feeling what she feels were hard to get my mind around. But that’s part of the pleasure of writing different characters, imagining them. The work of a writer is to imagine the interior life of a person with a different set of gender, culture, work, life experiences. On the other hand, she exhibits characteristics I appreciate and aspire to. She’s smart, organized, hard-working, unafraid. I wish I were that way, so writing those ideals is the way in to her mindset. To get outside of one way of thinking and feeling, writers need to work with a lot of tools—imagination, sympathy/empathy, compassion, psychology. If I only wrote about characters who were exactly like me, the novels would be boring and limited. Awareness of universal experiences and positive values set together with awareness of difference is a hard balance, but doable.

What makes The Last Train special or unique to you? Can you give us a little story behind the story?

To me, it’s unique because it is written not from a Japanese point of view, nor from a non-Japanese point of view. It comes from twenty years of living in Japan, working with Japanese, talking and being with them. I’m not sure if I have become more Japanese, but I’m sure I’ve shed a lot of my American-ness. Or merged the two in a new mix. Over two million non-Japanese live in Japan, and they have different insights into life here. So, it’s a bit like in America, where immigrant writers had, and still have, a unique take on the American experience. Those immigrant American writers helped to see America more clearly. In my novel, I write about Tokyo life from a slightly outside, but experienced point of view. “I never thought about that before,” is one of the comments I regularly received about the essays on Tokyo life I published. I’m getting similar comments on the novel. In the same way as an academic specialist on Japan who is not Japanese has a special insight into the culture, I think fiction writers offer different views based on their experiences. I go out a lot in Tokyo, and have written about music, art, politics and life here, so I wanted to draw on those two decades of observing and writing for the novel.

What are common traps for aspiring writers?

Everything can be a trap, and I’ve had my share. Still do. Let me pick three of the worst. First, I think it’s easy to be satisfied with a draft too soon. I used to underestimate the amount of time needed to make the final draft the best it can be. It’s a trap to think, “It’s done! Glass of wine, please.” It’s sometimes at that point, or into the glass of wine, that the best ideas emerge. So, set down the glass, turn the computer back on, and rewrite. Second is ego. I work in academia where the ego factor can get very inflated, very pretentious. Like academics, every author has a ballooning ego that can take off in a strong wind, but which can throw your mental navigation system off. I think it’s better focus on process, not product. The process keeps you humble. Another trap for me was my romantic view of writing—scrawling out lines in a basement garret with no heating and all that. Writing is extremely hard work without much support. It’s best to shuck off the romance of it and think of it like a job. A great job and better than most, I’d say, but more like playing classical music or performing brain surgery than gleefully penning inspired prose while beautiful Muses dance around me in a circle. Not thinking of writing as work is a big trap for me. It’s surprising to me how I can use almost anything, everything from laundry to self-pity, as a way of avoiding the work.

How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

Doing some research in the UT Austin library a few years ago, I came across one of Jack Kerouac’s notebooks. Inside, there were a dozen pages of sheer raving and childish glee when his first book, The Town and the City was accepted for publication. He was thanking god, blessing the world, rambling on in this teenage way. But then, it took him seven years to get his next book, On the Road, out after that first novel. Publishing my first book woke me up to get my butt in the chair on a regular basis. I used to write when I was inspired. And I was inspired often enough to get a lot done. The hard, cold, physical fact of a book changes your thinking because you’re in touch with a lot of people who read it. I felt thrilled and pleased, which is natural, but then that pleasure was something I wanted to turn into energy to do more and better on the next book.

Finalist- IAN Book of the Year Awards

Finalist- IAN Book of the Year Awards

The Independent Author Network

IAN Book of the Year Awards

Finalist  – Category Thriller

Book Readers Appreciation Group

Benjamin Franklin Digital Award

Silver Honoree

Benjamin Franklin Digital Award

New Apple Awards

Solo Medalist Winner

New Apple Awards

Interview Feathered Quill

http://www.featheredquill.com/reviews/interviews/pronko2_int.shtml

Author Interviews

Today, Feathered Quill reviewer Lynette Latzko is talking with Michael Pronko, author of The Last Train

FQ: I enjoyed all of the characters in this story, especially the interactions between the detectives. Are any of these compelling characters based on real life people?

PRONKO: Mostly they are composites of people I’ve observed and spoken with over the years. As for Michiko, she’s based on hostesses who work in the night world pouring drinks and talking with men that I’ve seen when out and about. There’s no single person that I was thinking of with her, but rather she exhibits the traits and characteristics—good and bad—that most impress me. Night life in Tokyo is very powerful, seductive, compelling, so the people who spend more time in that world are the same. The detectives work as a group, which seems very Japanese to me, rather than as a lone individual, which feels more American, or European to me. Their dialogue is more how I think of character being expressed, through dialogue and action but also through relationships. Each of the detectives has their own way of working and thinking and living, even though Hiroshi is the central character. Talking over drinks and small dishes is one of the ways business is conducted in Tokyo. It’s how things are done.

FQ: How did a man who is from Kansas City become attracted to and end up living and teaching for two decades in Japan, a culture that is so different from what you came from?

PRONKO: I came out of curiosity, stayed out of fascination, but also practicality. I got a job teaching at a university. A steady paycheck and interesting work makes it a lot easier to adapt. Being in Tokyo is like going on an overseas trip every day. Even twenty years later, there’s always something bewildering and intriguing. Even the predictable things remain surprising in their predictability. There are things that I fail to adapt to, some customs and ways of interacting that wear me out, like Japanese hiding their feelings and the excessive vagueness of communication. Tokyo is maybe different than the rest of Japan, I suppose, too. I don’t think I could live outside Tokyo, though I know plenty of foreigners who do, and love it. The city can be very cosmopolitan, but also shockingly traditional, welcoming and rejecting in equal measures. But, it feels comfortable now. I don’t feel I need to give up my American-ness to live here. I teach American literature, film, art, and music, so in that role, I remain very American. In some ways, I’m more American than I was living in the States, see it more clearly from outside, or at least feel parts of the culture more objectively.

FQ: Your descriptions of urban Japan are quite fascinating, especially the parts about Japanese business practices that we Westerners don’t have. Can you explain to readers the importance of the Meishi for a Japanese business person?

PRONKO: Meishi are central to Tokyo life and culture. You hand your name card to anyone you meet that you want to keep in touch with. But it’s also a way of knowing who you are talking to. Because protocol and levels of politeness can be tricky, it’s good to know if you’re talking to the head of a company or the custodian, both of whom might say, “I work at XXX company,” when you meet them. For stores and restaurants, it’s a form of advertising. You take a meishi so you can go back again. That’s important because some places are hard to find, and the meishi often have a small map. You can track someone’s life, see their contacts and meetings, through their meishi, which is what the detectives start with in the novel. I have hundreds and hundreds of them, several file boxes full. I bought a special scanner to digitize them. Nowadays, with Facebook, Linkedin and online sites, maybe they’re less important than before, but I still have a big handful of new meishi just since the last time I scanned them. If I meet my students after they have graduated, it’s a moment of genuine pride for them to give me their meishi with their name, position and company. It’s your identity, where you fit in the world, who you are connected to.

FQ: Throughout this story, one of the characters, Michiko, visits a few Japanese shrines and writes on Ema. Can you elaborate more on the meaning of Ema, and their significance in Japanese culture?

PRONKO: Ema are part of the ancient system of offering at a Shinto shrine. The word combines the characters for ‘painting’ and ‘horse,’ and often there is a small horse painted on the board. In ancient times, the ultimate offering would be a horse, but since that’s a bit impractical these days, the picture substitutes. Nowadays, they are used as prayers to grant wishes from the gods. If someone is taking the college entrance exam, they would write one asking to pass. Other common requests are for pregnancy, smooth childbirth, curing an illness, business success, basically whatever you want but aren’t sure about getting. Some shrines specialize in specific requests. Michiko writes the ema to ask for help in her ventures, but also to wash away her guilt. The sacred space inside the shrine is marked as clean and pure by washing one’s hands at the gate, so she needs that. Michiko goes to those shrines to cleanse herself, dispel guilt, and recover. Towards the end, she also goes with her best friend to a temple where they buy small bibs for a stone “Jizo” statue, which is a cute, small, man-like statue, often hundreds of them lined up side by side. If women have an abortion, they will sometimes buy a bib and hat and tie it on one of the statues to atone for the lost child.

FQ: What were your motivations behind writing a mystery-thriller involving trains, and your decision to make the villain a female?

PRONKO: Trains were an easy decision. They are central to Tokyo life. It is how people move around. It’s where people meet, how they conceive the city: “I’ll meet you at Shinjuku station, south exit.” A car chase is possible (and my third book will have one, though with a twist), but I wanted to think about the terror of the train crowds and the speed of trains. Day to day, no one thinks about it much, but if you stand on a platform, there’s this mass of metal speeding past just a couple of steps away. And because there are often, sadly, tragically, suicides of people jumping in front of trains, it seemed like one way a murderer might cover her crimes. As for the villain being a female, she’s empowering herself and turning the tables on men. But, the main things she does are not evil. She’s just making a living. The killing shows some disconnect inside her, but that disconnect comes from the way women are considered and treated in Japan. Michiko is doing these terrible villainous things, but at the same time, she’s also doing some heroic things by not conforming and succeeding by society’s standards.

 

FQ: Is this book also being published in Japan, and if so, what have been the reactions you have received from readers?

PRONKO: I will publish it in Japanese later, but I haven’t finalized that yet. I’m curious what the reactions will be. Japanese are usually curious to hear what non-Japanese think and read how they react to Japan. The Japanese readers who have read it in English so far have been very positive, and said they saw a new view of Tokyo. I think as a foreigner here, I see some things and miss a lot of other things. But that’s interesting, and no different for Japanese here, too. With my other collections of writing about Tokyo, the ways of observing and responding are not what most Japanese would see or say, so I guess that will be the case with this novel, too. Back to you on that question next year!

 

FQ: I’m impressed with your writing ability in The Last Train. However, I am sad to say that I often come across independent writers who do not take their writing seriously, failing to invest in solid writing and editing services. What type of proofreading and editing do you go through when writing?

PRONKO: I think a book is a precious, complex entity, so spending a lot of time on it is just respectful of the audience and it’s also interesting for myself. As for services, a professional, well-paid editor is essential. Whenever I read what an editor sends me, it’s torture, all those comments on the side of the file! As I read those comments, it’s always a series of Homer Simpson moments, “Doh!” How could I have missed that? It’s very humbling. For this novel three professional editors gave detailed line-by-line input, as well as comments on character and story. I rewrote the novel countless times, each time focusing on something different: for overall story, for organization, for drama, for scene, for character, for sentence quality, and again for impact and flow. In addition, I built writing skill by writing for magazines, newspapers and online sites for 20 years. There’s nothing better than the pressure of a close deadline and a crabby editor to get you to put your ego aside and produce. I read and teach literature as my day job, so that’s a constant source of input and insight about writing. Going over novels, stories and films with students, especially outlining everything, deepens my attention to writing and story-telling. As a writer, I want to write better, so I work on finding ways to deeply experience stories, to understand what a story is and what stories do, to stay open to input, and to be comfortable applying my craft to the work. I want to keep developing all that.

FQ: I read that you will be releasing books two (Japan Hand) and three (Thai Girl in Toky) of this series in the next year or so. Do you have any other stories possibly brewing that your fans can look forward to in the future?

PRONKO: A lot of other stories brewing, too many maybe. After these next two, which I’m rewriting now, I will do two stand-alone novels, one about English teaching and another about foreigners in Tokyo. Those are both mystery-thrillers, too, but not detective-based. I like the detectives, and each of them deserves their own starring role, so I have a couple in mind for them as well. I also like satire, so I have a couple of ideas about cross-cultural satire, but that will come after these planned ones.

FQ: What are some of your favorite Japanese authors that you would recommend to readers from Western cultures?

PRONKO: As for mysteries, I like Seicho Matsumoto, Keigo Higashino, Miyuki Miyabe, Natsuo Kirino, and many more these days are getting translated into English. As for non-mystery writers, I love Kobo Abe, Junichiro Tanizaki, Kenzaburo Oe, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima, Osamu Dazai, Iharu Saikaku and I could go on, but these are the writers that knocked me out at first reading when I first came to Japan. These writers are deeply Japanese, but also universal enough to grab non-Japanese readers.

  FQ: I see that you’ve been interviewed by several other review websites. Is there anything that interviewers have failed to ask you and you’ve been dying to let readers know about you personally, and about your novel, The Last Train?

PRONKO: One thing that I hope readers will find is the idea of mysteries as a balance of fantasy and reality, escape and observation, pleasure and criticism. I think mysteries help to chart out the limits and edges of acceptable behavior and explore the reasons for unacceptable behavior. Morality is a tricky thing in every culture, and highly variable from place to place, while murder is one of the few universal taboos. Mysteries explore the fissures and confusions among those issues. I find that really fascinating. The value and importance of mysteries and thrillers is they can turn our thinking inside out and, hopefully, in some way restore our interest and trust in the world.

To learn more about The Last Train please read the review at: Feathered Quill Book Reviews.

 

Spotlight Reviews Feathered Quill

The Last Train (Detective Hiroshi series, Book 1)

By: Michael Pronko

Publisher: Raked Gravel Press

Publication Date: May 2017

ISBN: 978-1942410126

Reviewed by: Lynette Latzko

Review Date: July 2, 2017

Professor and award-winning essayist, Michael Pronko, takes readers on a fast-paced ride through the streets of Japan in his debut mystery novel, The Last Train.

Detective Hiroshi Shimizu, a little bit emotionally banged up from a recent relationship breakup, is contacted by his mentor and fellow coworker, detective Takamatsu, concerning a gruesome incident involving an American businessman, Steve Deveaux. The American was discovered dead on the train tracks of the Tamachi station in Tokyo. Not really wanting to get involved, Hiroshi originally believes it’s a simple case of suicide, but Takamatsu quickly points out several key points why it has to be murder, one of which is that he believes that foreigners just don’t commit suicide in Tokyo. The only sketchy information they have that points in the direction of murder is a security camera that was outside briefly showing a woman walking behind the man who would be dead in a matter of minutes.

Armed with this knowledge, detectives Hiroshi and Takamatsu along with ex-sumo wrestler, Sakaguchi, embark on a twisting and turning investigative journey that takes them, and readers, into the underbelly of Tokyo in the Roppongi district, famous for its nightlife and Japanese hostess clubs. The author expertly educates readers on both the business and nighttime leisure culture of Japan throughout this story with such well-crafted proficiency that only an individual as uniquely qualified, who has spent time exploring, admiring, and living in Japan, can do.

The most compelling aspect of this thriller is not the typical whodunit that lingers on the minds of readers throughout the story (in fact the murderer is revealed early on), but the motivation behind the decision to murder, and who will be the next target. What also makes this an unusual and compelling novel is that readers will find it hard not to feel a little sympathy for the murderess the detectives are desperately searching for, Michiko Suzuki, who is an alluring former hostess with a complex and harrowing past including being kidnapped. It becomes easily understandable why she seeks the ultimate revenge against a society that has turned her and her family’s world upside down as early as her childhood. But, sympathy or not, she must be stopped before more men die, whether they deserve it or not, but will the detectives find her before she strikes again, or will one of them become her latest victim?

Quill says: The Last Train is a fast-paced thriller that skillfully exposes readers to the seedy urban side of Japan and leaves readers anxiously waiting for the next novel in the detective Hiroshi series.

Feathered Quill Website

http://www.featheredquill.com/

Interview with My Book Place

http://mybookplace.net/michael-pronko/

Michael Pronko

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.

This is my debut mystery novel. I have lived, taught and written in Tokyo for twenty years, but I was born in Kansas City, a very different world from Tokyo. After graduating from Brown University in philosophy, I hit the road. I traveled around the world for two years working odd jobs, and finally went back to school. After a Master’s in Education, I got a call from Beijing offering me a teaching position. I took it. I lived in Beijing for two years, teaching English, traveling the country and writing. I was lucky enough to meet my wife there.

I spent more time traveling, teaching English and finishing two more degrees, Comparative Literature in Madison, Wisconsin and a PhD in English at the University of Kent at Canterbury, writing about film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ novels.

Now, I live with my wife in western Tokyo and work as a professor of American Literature at Meiji Gakuin University. I teach seminars in contemporary novels and film adaptations, and classes in American indie film and American music and art. After talking with my students about Jackson Pollock, Bessie Smith, or Kurt Vonnegut, I head out to wander through Tokyo. The contrasts, and confluences, always put ideas for writing into my head.

I have published three award-winning collections of essays: Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo (Raked Gravel Press 2015), Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens (Raked Gravel Press 2014), and Beauty and Chaos: Essays on Tokyo (Raked Gravel Press 2014). I have also published books in Japanese and two textbooks in both English and Japanese.

Over the years in Tokyo, I have written regular columns for many publications: The Japan Times, Newsweek Japan, Jazznin, ST Shukan, Jazz Colo[u]rs, and Artscape Japan. I currently run my own website Jazz in Japan. I also continue to publish academic articles and help run a conference on teaching literature

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?

My latest book is The Last Train. I got the idea for it because I live in Tokyo, and was a jazz writer for quite a few years, and still am. But when I started I was writing about jazz for the Japan Times, so I was always out at night in the nightlife parts of the city. I’d see these hostesses who work in all the clubs there, and they are stunningly attractive. But, I wondered what kind of life they led, staying up all night, working in the clubs in all these pretty wild areas of the city. I stared to wonder what was inside their appealing external appearance. What if one of them was a LOT smarter than they men she was working with, and decided to get more money than she could make as a hostess. The other inspiration is riding trains. They are a central part of Tokyo life. I wanted to explore how important they are to life—and to death.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?

Writing is an unusual habit in itself, I feel! I just sit down and try to focus. I usually meditate a bit beforehand, but when I’m busy, I just sit down and let fly. I also write a lot on the train. Trains in Tokyo are packed, but calming to me. So, I can rewrite if I get a seat, which is rare, or just standing up.

What authors, or books have influenced you?

EVERY book I’ve read has influenced me. I read a lot for work as a professor of American literature, but I also read whatever I feel like, too. Everything is part of the effect on how I approach the writing.

What are you working on now?

The next book in the Hiroshi detective series. It’s called Japan Hand and looks at the relations between America and Japan, and tries to figure out why an old Japan hand, who lived in Japan and loved the culture, was killed.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?

I wish I knew! I think any site that saves readers time to find what they want is helpful. The internet is a pain at times, but it’s really good for looking around when you know sort of what you want, but not exactly. I google around for things all the time. My own site, I suppose is best to connect.

Do you have any advice for new authors?

Write every day. Find a place to get published no matter how small. Working with an editor is important as they wise you up pretty quickly about the dismal state of your writing. That helps get the ego out of the way and lets you focus on the writing itself. Editors also help immensely to focus clearly.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?

Mark Twain said don’t let your schooling get in the way of your education. I repeat that to my students at the end of every semester, and to myself. I also like the Latin ‘nulle dies sine linea’ which means never a day without writing a line. That goes to the previous question.

What are you reading now?

I always have two dozen books half read. I read mysteries and thrillers, but also mainstream and literary fiction of all kinds. I love to read about culture, Zen, jazz and whatever topic I find. I read a lot of essays, too, since my last three books were collections of creative non-fiction.

What’s next for you as a writer?

More novels in the same series. I may go back to non-fiction about Japan again, but for now I want to get this series out. I have the next and next next written, so I’m focusing on that for now.

What is your favorite book of all time?

Zorba the Greek! It’s everything together.

Author Websites and Profiles

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Interview with Paul Semel at paulsemel.com

http://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-last-train-author-michael-pronko/

PaulSemel.com

JUNE 28, 2017

Exclusive Interview: The Last Train Author Michael Pronko

While noir crime novels are a distinctly American art form, it’s one that’s practiced by writers all over the world. Sweden gave us Henning Mankell (Faceless Killers), Matz (The Killer Omnibus Volume 1) hails from France, while Japan’s Hideo Yokoyama recently made an impressive first impression with Six Four. But writer Michael Pronko is a little different. While the writer of The Last Train (paperback, digital) was born in Kansan City, he’s lived in Tokyo for the last twenty years, working as both a writer and a professor of American Literature at Meiji Gakuin University. All of which informed his own take on the noir crime novel. 

I always like to start with the basics. So, basically, what is The Last Trainabout?

The basics are a woman named Michiko seeks revenge by using her business smarts, her good looks, and the Tokyo trains. Investigating her are Detectives Hiroshi, the lead, and Sakaguchi, an ex-sumo wrestler turned detective. The novel is also about Tokyo, the external side and the internal side both. The novel is about how they find her and how the reader comes to understand her reasons for wanting revenge.

Where did you get the idea for The Last Train, and how different is the final novel from that initial idea?

I covered jazz for The Japan Times for many years, and still write about jazz on my site Jazz In Japan, so in the jazz clubs and other bars I would always see hostesses, women who work in high-class clubs pouring drinks and talking with male customers. They were certainly attractive, dressed and coiffed to perfection. I felt they carried themselves with dignity and elegance, and were not so passive as they acted. They often seemed quite smart and savvy to me. I wondered what would happen if one of them got angry and decided to take what she felt she was owed. The train system in Tokyo is central to the novel and the story came to me in a flash standing on a platform as an express shot by. From that moment, I think my idea didn’t change that much, though the details evolved and expanded.

The Last Train is a crime novel, but there’s lots of subgenres in the crime novel realm. Where do you think yours fits in?

Genre boundaries are so tricky, inclusive and exclusive, marketing hype, reader orientation, but I think novels are always a mix of many genre elements. The Last Train is a mystery, but with elements of suspense and thriller. It’s a detective novel, certainly, with a dash of police procedural, though not a straight-line procedure, more intuitive. From my point of view here in Tokyo, it’s not international, but from outside Japan, maybe it fits under the category of international mystery.

What writers, and which of their novels, do you see as being the biggest influences on The Last Train, and in what ways?

It’s such a huge mix of influences, though I’m not trying to emulate anyone or any style. I teach American Literature as my day job, so I’m influenced by reading Hemingway, Pynchon, Nabokov, McCarthy, Vonnegut, Heller, and by outlining all of them to teach them. Outlining really gives you a deep understanding of how novels work. Just reading is one thing, but when I study, read, outline, explain, discuss, I feel I can understand those novels and the idea of novels most fully. I read older mystery, thriller, noir novels, too…and sometimes outline those as well. I like the ’30s and ’40s style the most.

I also feel influenced by novels that really arise from the setting. Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, Raymond Chandler, their novels are deep Los Angeles, right? Many Japanese crime writers give me a sense of Japan from deep inside: Keigo Higashino, Natsuo Kirino, Seicho Matsumoto, Miyuki Miyabe. Though I’m sure I see Japan very differently than they do, so I’m not sure if that’s influence. I also like the Chinese writer Qiu Xiaolong; I lived in China for three years. And this might sound odd, but it’s often novels I don’t like very much which influence me, too, pushing me to write differently from them. Maybe that’s counter-influence?

What about non-literary influences; do you think any movies, TV shows, or video games had an influence on The Last Train, and if so, what in what ways?

Films and more films, yes. I love film noir, and even the most B-movie-like of them are fascinating. I watch many films set in Japan, old and new, so I learn a lot from those. Most samurai films, which I really love, could be considered mysteries, or suspense/thrillers. Many anime paint a rich visual view of Japan, and their constructed visuals call attention to details: the color of the sky, the way a crowd moves, the structure of buildings. But it’s more the small details of those films and anime that really sink into my consciousness, and unconscious. I want readers to be able to see Tokyo and the characters in the same way those visual narratives let viewers see and re-see. I watch TV shows, too, to see how Japanese see Tokyo, and to get a different take on the inner conflicts of current Japanese society. All that mixes in and adds its influence.

It’s my understanding — and please correct me if your experience has been different — that some Japanese people don’t like it when people from other countries come there to live. Given that, what has been the reaction in Japan to an American resident of Tokyo writing a crime novel set in Japan and with a Japanese detective as the hero?

When I say to people here that I’m a teacher, I’m always surprised how deep respect for teachers runs in Japan. So, being tenured at a Japanese university, I’m accepted at least for that role. But still, there’s a lot of resistance, even inside universities, to foreigners living here. The reaction to the novel, and to my other essays about Tokyo life is always mixed. The cosmopolitan side of Tokyo people is open and interested, but there’s a closed-in, traditional Japanese attitude always lurking there, too. The one sleight-of-hand I did to mitigate the rejecting, dismissive reaction was make Hiroshi, the Japanese detective, fluent in English and conversant in other cultures. He’s lived outside Japan, so that gives him an internationalized understanding. His inside/outside perspective is closer to my own after living here for twenty years. In it, but not completely of it. That’s the classic detective position, isn’t it? The crimes, too, have a connection to other countries’ people in all the novels. I haven’t published the novel in Japanese yet, though, so that would surely get a different set of responses.

Do you think the reaction to the book would be different if instead of writing a crime novel, you had written in another genre?

It would be harder to write a love story between two Japanese maybe, and that would fall under more scrutiny, I’m sure. It’s hard to get inside the mind of another person no matter where they’re from. With my other three collections of essays about Tokyo, and the column published in Japanese, I found people receptive to my comments about Tokyo, perhaps because I wrote from my own point of view. They would often say, “I never noticed that before.” So, a foreign point of view can see the routine, accepted parts of life in a fresh way. That’s what makes all writing interesting, that freshness.

Now, The Last Train is your first novel, but it’s not your first book. You previously wrote the non-fiction books Beauty And Chaos: Slices And Morsels Of Tokyo Life, Motions And Moments: More Essays On Tokyo, and Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens. Is there anything that your first foray into fiction shares with your non-fiction writing? Like is there a similar style or something else in common?

There’s a lot of overlap. The novel draws on years of being immersed in life here, observing, participating, working, traveling, and writing about it all. I drew on that for the non-fiction books, and for the novel as well. The creative non-fiction has lots of literary elements, like three-part dramatic structure, character, symbols, setting, all those things. On the other side, a novel must include a lot of non-fiction elements if it’s going to ring true. Writing editorials for The Japan Times forced me to work with a lot of facts, information, statistics, and background knowledge. Fiction and non-fiction share a lot of things but from different directions, or with a different balance of what’s in the foreground or background. The similarity is maybe hard to see at first, but it’s there. Both voices are mine.

You’ve already said that The Last Train is the first book in a series you’re calling the Detective Hiroshi series. But how much of that series do you have figured out? Do you know if it will be a set number of books, like a trilogy, or an ongoing series?

I launched into the second novel right after finishing the first, and then right into the third after the second was done. I wanted to get a sense of where it was all going, and I’m glad I did. When I finished the third novel, I had a lot of new ideas for when I circled back to rewriting the first. Charles Dickens, another huge influence on me, had to think in two different ways: far, far ahead and for the next month’s deadline. His longer novels are about four times the length of most mysteries. That’s a lot of narrative to keep bouncing around in your head bone, with or without a computer. But it makes you think big. It’s not that I wanted all the Detective Hiroshi novels to interweave in terms of story, but rather in the overall approach. Doing it this way, the books all work alone, but reverberate with each other, expanding and enlarging parts of the others as a series.

So do you know how many books will there be and when might we see them?

I haven’t set the final number yet, but I’ll do at least six books in this Hiroshi series. The next two I’m working on now are getting a solid rewrite, edit, and polish. I have three more outlined in detail. The next one, Japan Hand, should be out by early 2018, and the next one, Thai Girl In Tokyo, will be out mid to late 2018. I’m thinking of two standalones outside the series, but the other two detectives, Sakaguchi, the ex-sumo wrestler, and Takamatsu, the old-school bad boy, seem to be clamoring in my head for novels with them as the lead.

So, has there been any interest in adapting The Last Train into a movie, TV show, or maybe even an anime?

I’d love to see it on the screen. I think very visually when I write, and often go back to look at places or at photos I’ve taken of places in the novel. I teach a class on film adaptations of novels, so I’m fascinated by the back-and-forth comparisons. Tokyo’s so photogenic, too, a huge city that’s visually stunning, surprising, overwhelming. I think a lot of anime directors are amazing artists, so it would be fascinating to see an adaptation in that way, too. Anime lets you see more concretely and directly. TV shows run on a different set of episodic structures, but I think the conflicts and characters would work there. I think The Last Train could be adapted to all those forms.

If it was going to be made into a movie or TV show, who would you like to see cast as Detective Hiroshi and the other main characters?

There are so many great actors in Japan. If I could, I’d go back to the actors of Japanese 1950s films, Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Ken Takakura, actors who entered completely into their roles. I could also see current Japanese actors like Takeshi Kaneshiro, Yosuke Eguchi, Hideaki Ito as fitting detective roles. Koji Yakusho and Ren Osugi always impress me. Shinichi Tsutsumi is maybe the closest idea I have of Detective Hiroshi. Lead actress is harder. Maybe an unknown actress would be best, but I love the acting of Koyuki, Ryoko Shinohara, who often plays a detective, Miki Nakatani are smart, savvy women in many of their roles. As for Sakaguchi, the ex-sumo wrestler, well, you can imagine the tryouts for that part.

Finally, if someone really enjoys The Last Train, and they’re looking for something to read while waiting for Japan Hand to come out, what Japanese crime novel would you suggest they read next and why that one?

Seicho Matsumoto, but all of his. He’s a slower pace than contemporary novelists, but he really embodies the essence of Japan in his detective novels.

 

Writing Setting, Writing Tokyo: Guest Post by Michael Pronko

Big Thanks to Janet Randolph at Mystery Fanfare, a super-well done blog about all things mystery

http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.jp/

http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.jp/2017/06/writing-setting-writing-tokyo-guest.html

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2017

Writing Setting, Writing Tokyo: Guest Post by Michael Pronko

Michael Pronko’s  Tokyo-based mystery, The Last Train, was released May 31, 2017. Michael is the author of three collections of award-winning writings on Tokyo Life, Beauty and Chaos, Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens, and Motions and Moments, the latter won twelve indie press awards. He is a professor of American Literature and Culture at Meiji Gakuin University, in Tokyo, where he has lived for the last twenty years. He also writes about jazz on his site Jazz in Japan. He is currently working on the next mystery in the series, Japan Hand, due out in early 2018. www.michaelpronko.com @pronkomichael www.facebook.com/pronkoauthor/ 

Michael Pronko: 

Writing Setting, Writing Tokyo 

Setting is one of the trickiest parts of writing a novel. It can enrich a scene or dampen it, act as a springboard or a wall. When I set my mystery, The Last Train, in Tokyo, I wondered how much readers would have seen of Tokyo, if anything. “Lost in Translation” maybe? I knew the setting was integral to the story, but how to get that across to readers with only a few telling, or rather showing, images?

I had it easy when I wrote columns about Tokyo life from a foreigner’s point of view for Newsweek Japan. The readers of the Japanese-language column were mainly Tokyoites, so I could skip a lot of description. If I wrote, “ramen shop counter,” everyone in Tokyo knows just what that looks like and what happens there. If I wrote, “large sake bottle,” people know what the size and shape and color is, how one pours from the big bottle into a teensy cup. So, how to choose the right details for readers who have never been to a sake bar or to Tokyo at all? That was the challenge.

Action helps immensely. When I write a Tokyo setting, certain actions make sense: taking trains, looking up at the buildings, weaving through the crowds. So, I included those actions as part of the overall setting, and integrated them into the story. Typical, everyday action adds to the static descriptions of setting to make it come alive. Tokyo without the ceaseless trains, blinking neon and fast-moving crowds would not be Tokyo. The dynamism of each setting keeps it from becoming static description and helps the reader feel that this action—and this story—could only take place in this setting.

When writing about Tokyo for people who may have never been there, it is hard to know which details work best, and in what proportion. Too much detail and the setting sinks like a dead weight. Too little detail and the story could take place anywhere. I’ve lived in Tokyo for twenty years, so when I started working on the settings, I spent a lot of time thinking back to my first impressions of the city. I also watched tourists (there’s been a tourist boom recently) to see what they were looking at, and imagining what grabbed them. When I write the first draft, I always slather on way too many details. I jam in every color, object, smell, size and sound I can. But then on successive drafts, I ask myself, what is quintessentially Tokyo? With that in mind, I peel off and discard what’s unneeded. It’s more chiseling and whittling than writing.

Another way I think of setting is cinematically. When visualizing a scene, I try to think like a cinematographer. (Check out the documentary “Visions of Light” on cinematography.) Lighting, framing, angles, distance should all be part of the description of a setting. Most importantly, a setting should create the feeling of motion. I think in two ways, long shot and close-up. I try to look around a scene to find both a sweeping detail for the big picture (“Lighted signs listing the clubs zipped up the sides of buildings from sidewalk to rooftop.”) And then small, pointed details bring it up close, like the name of a club, “Black Moon, Kingdom Come.” That doesn’t have to be like a helicopter over the city kind of shot, or a long, lingering shot on the face of the heroine, which is a bit outdated, but just a sentence or two that moves the reader’s mind’s eye over the space and then onto a central focus.

To get setting right, I close my eyes a lot when I write, and often go back to places I want to describe. Tokyo is big so that takes a lot of time. I go there and let my emotional response direct me towards details and words. And sometimes I google things. What does a metal lathe look like? I kind of know, but since it’s a key object in one setting, the main character hides money below the lathe, pulling up a few images of lathes and looking them over helps decide how to present that part of the setting. All of this is aimed at making the reader not just see the lathe, but smell the machine oil and dust of the factory floor, to not just see the glass holding cold sake on a humid night, but to taste it. When I wrote: “The sake flowed gently over the top of the lip of the glass into the box, arousing the aroma of cedar and fresh rice,” then the first sip of sake is anticipated. Or, at least, it is for me.

In working with the setting of Tokyo, I am lucky, I feel. The city is photogenic in all kinds of ways, and endlessly diverse. It’s also a huge place, so I’ll never run out of settings. I’ve lived here writing and teaching for long enough to know the city well, but that’s not enough. I always re-view and re-imagine Tokyo from the reader’s point of view. In The Last Train, I wanted to be sure readers could not just see Tokyo, but feel they were in Tokyo, or want to be.