Status Updates From I Wonder What Human Flesh T...

Almost done with the final story and by far the longest, which revolves around a friendship between 2 teenage boys (one Japanese the other South Korean) that slowly falls apart... full of weird and often disturbing but always evocative and beautifully written dream/fantasy sequences. Once again I am impressed by the author's skill at describing atmospheres, and characters' inner lives in unique ways of using words...

I am starting to understand this... "The Quest for Chinese People" hilariously satirises Japan's particular brand of parochial nationalism, "A Design for Life" is an interesting look into cross-cultural underground art movements, the 2nd title short story revolves around 2 young women raised vegetarian who react against their upbringing with bleakly comical results....

I am impressed how well Justin describes the inner lives of the main characters even when they do things that are weird and offensive to most of readers with the results being oddly poignant, as well as how everything looks and feels - he really has a knack for capturing extremely specific atmospheres.

The main character in the title short story seems to be a bit of a self-caricature, by the way...

Already familiar with the author's science-fiction short story collection "Welcome to the Arms Race", this is his collection of realistic fiction. Considering that he's a 2nd generation Italian-American expat with no Japanese ancestry, I am impressed how many obscure and weird aspects of modern Japanese society he depicts in such fine detail. Going by the cover art for both books he also likes secondary colours.