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ベッドタイムアイズ・指の戯れ・ジェシーの背骨
メイクラブまでは一瞬だった。立ち入り禁止のドアの向こう、横たわるスペースもないその空間で、私は立ったまま片足を高く上げハイヒールを壁に付ける。足首には小さなショーツが巻きついている。やがて体の芯に“あれ”が来て、すべての感覚が麻痺してしまった。「うちに来て」――黒人脱走兵・スプーンとの生活がはじまった。愛の表現も謝罪の表現も、私を気持ちよくするための方法を、彼はファックしか知らない。かわいいスプーン――。黒人との愛を描いた、デビュー作を含む詠美文学の原点・3編を収録。
322 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1992
6 people want to read
About the author
Amy Yamada
102 books49 followersAmy Yamada (AKA 山田 詠美, Yamada Eimi) born February 8, 1959, is a popular but controversial contemporary Japanese writer who is most famous for her stories that address issues of sexuality, racism, and interracial marriage, topics not typically discussed openly in Japanese society.
Born in Tokyo as Futaba Yamada, she lived in several places around Japan due to her father's job. This transient lifestyle forced her to confront issues of separation and bullying, issues that many of her protagonists also deal with.
According to her interview with the Japanese magazine Bungei, during middle school she was moved by African-American soul music and began to read any novels she could find written by black people, or featuring black people. She held a job in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, an area rich with foreigners.
After graduating from high school in 1977, she entered Meiji University's Literature Department, but dropped out before graduating. After a short stint writing and drawing manga, she began writing novels in 1980. Though her works garnered some attention, even receiving praise from Japanese literary critic Jun Eto (江藤淳 Eto Jun?), she only achieved widespread recognition in 1985, when Bedtime Eyes won the Bungei Prize. In writing Bedtime Eyes, Yamada drew upon her experiences with black people and black culture and combined them with the Japanese literary tradition.
In 1996, "Trash" was published in English translation by Kodansha International (translator: Sonya L. Johnson). In May 2006, three of Yamada's novellas (Bedtime Eyes 「ベッドタイム･アイズ」, The Piano Player's Fingers 「指の戯れ」 and Jesse 「ジェシーの背骨」) were published in English translation (translators: Yumi Gunji and Marc Jardine) as a single volume by St Martin's Press under the collective title Bedtime Eyes.
In Yamada's second collection of works, Jesse's Spine, Yamada depicts the experiences of a woman who is learning to adjust to life with her lover's child from another relationship. The writing style of this work has been compared to William Saroyan's novel, Papa You're Crazy. Through her depiction of the child's perspective on the world, her book was a critical success, earning her a nomination for the Akutagawa Prize for new authors. In her short novels Classroom for the Abandoned Dead, Afterschool Music, and I Can't Study, Yamada tackles the topics of childhood life, bullying, and school life. In an interview with Bungei Shunjū upon winning the Akutagawa Prize, Risa Wataya and Hitomi Kanehara named Yamada's Afterschool Music as one of their major influences, explaining that her works were one of the greatest depictions of modern Japan.
Born in Tokyo as Futaba Yamada, she lived in several places around Japan due to her father's job. This transient lifestyle forced her to confront issues of separation and bullying, issues that many of her protagonists also deal with.
According to her interview with the Japanese magazine Bungei, during middle school she was moved by African-American soul music and began to read any novels she could find written by black people, or featuring black people. She held a job in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, an area rich with foreigners.
After graduating from high school in 1977, she entered Meiji University's Literature Department, but dropped out before graduating. After a short stint writing and drawing manga, she began writing novels in 1980. Though her works garnered some attention, even receiving praise from Japanese literary critic Jun Eto (江藤淳 Eto Jun?), she only achieved widespread recognition in 1985, when Bedtime Eyes won the Bungei Prize. In writing Bedtime Eyes, Yamada drew upon her experiences with black people and black culture and combined them with the Japanese literary tradition.
In 1996, "Trash" was published in English translation by Kodansha International (translator: Sonya L. Johnson). In May 2006, three of Yamada's novellas (Bedtime Eyes 「ベッドタイム･アイズ」, The Piano Player's Fingers 「指の戯れ」 and Jesse 「ジェシーの背骨」) were published in English translation (translators: Yumi Gunji and Marc Jardine) as a single volume by St Martin's Press under the collective title Bedtime Eyes.
In Yamada's second collection of works, Jesse's Spine, Yamada depicts the experiences of a woman who is learning to adjust to life with her lover's child from another relationship. The writing style of this work has been compared to William Saroyan's novel, Papa You're Crazy. Through her depiction of the child's perspective on the world, her book was a critical success, earning her a nomination for the Akutagawa Prize for new authors. In her short novels Classroom for the Abandoned Dead, Afterschool Music, and I Can't Study, Yamada tackles the topics of childhood life, bullying, and school life. In an interview with Bungei Shunjū upon winning the Akutagawa Prize, Risa Wataya and Hitomi Kanehara named Yamada's Afterschool Music as one of their major influences, explaining that her works were one of the greatest depictions of modern Japan.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 19, 2018
It's smut, focusing on Philippino and Japanese prostitutes living and loving/having drunken sex with black men and taking drugs or having other issues of dusfunctional life. Since, I belong to neither of those categories I have found the protagonists impossible to relate to and the reading experience excruciatingly tedious. However, if you're into that sort of thing, then by all means.
Displaying 1 of 1 review