The protagonist of the novel goes by the same name as the author. Izumi is a model who hangs out with rock stars and makes no bones about the fact she likes getting laid. Then, half way through the book, she meets the darkly controlling Jun, a jazz guitarist. Jun is a manipulative controlling personality. Izumi is a drifter, a wil-o-the-wisp, who gets caught in his slipstream. He is abusive and ends up going insane. The first half of the novel feels as though it takes place in a limited timeframe: the second half unfolds rapidly over the course of a decade. Izumi’s descent, tied to Jun’s lunacy, is vertiginous.
It’s not hard to see why Izumi Suzuki’s writing struck a chord in the Japanese psyche. She writes with a candour that pierces the codified society. Sex, violence, drugs: nothing is held back. It’s particularly surprising to see Izumi’s wilful licentiousness and the detail the author provides, without ever seeming salacious. This is how this young woman, representative of a certain zeitgeist, lives. Japan’s social codes have perhaps always concealed a more sexualised undercurrent, the world of geishas and arrangements. Suzuki smashes through any kind of hypocrisy, offering a convincing vision of an alternative slacker society.
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