Taylor Drew reviewed ジャクソンひとり by 安堂 ホセ
On Black life in Japan
3 stars
This book is about race relations in Japan, particularly those of mixed Black Japanese gay men, the one of the prominent characters is a Black international student--from the US if I remember correctly. The synopsis doesn't pretend that it's anything but that, so I expected the commentary that was dispersed throughout the narrative to be there.
What I didn't expect was the way that the narrative/prose flowed between perspectives without warning between half a dozen different people. There are no clear demarcations between perspective shifts and you just really have to be paying attention for when they happen. It's thematically relevant and I really liked the way it was done, but it could be a bit hard to keep track of at times.
I thought that the writing and themes explored within this book were really interesting, but I found the overall story(?) to just be okay. The book is …
This book is about race relations in Japan, particularly those of mixed Black Japanese gay men, the one of the prominent characters is a Black international student--from the US if I remember correctly. The synopsis doesn't pretend that it's anything but that, so I expected the commentary that was dispersed throughout the narrative to be there.
What I didn't expect was the way that the narrative/prose flowed between perspectives without warning between half a dozen different people. There are no clear demarcations between perspective shifts and you just really have to be paying attention for when they happen. It's thematically relevant and I really liked the way it was done, but it could be a bit hard to keep track of at times.
I thought that the writing and themes explored within this book were really interesting, but I found the overall story(?) to just be okay. The book is really short, but I'm already forgetting a lot of the key details and nothing in particular beyond the overall style and themes really sticks out in my mind.
I'm really glad this book exists and I'm really glad that I read it. I'm so glad the author is still writing and that his work is being recognized. But I wasn't really blown away by this one unfortunately and it ended up feeling more like a textbook experience than a novel one for me.