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In the Shōgun’s footsteps
James Clavell’s novel Shōgun came out when I was in high school. In 1980, the made-for-TV mini-series version aired in the US. It starred Richard Chamberlain as the English pilot John Blackthorne and Yoko Shimada as his Japanese intepreter Mariko. It’s embarrassing to admit but I think Shōgun sparked my lifelong fascination with Japan. That…
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The Smell of Opium
Max Lazerich is 16 years old when he runs away from home. He doesn’t want to work in his father’s soda shop. He won’t take school seriously. His dream is to see the world and so he does. The Smell of Opium is my novel-in-progress about a naive Jewish kid from New Jersey coming of…
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Day of the Dead
Every culture has a tradition of honoring the dead. It may be grave sweeping in China or the Obon festival in Japan. On All Souls’s Day here in Amsterdam, families set candle-lit boots loose onto the lake in Vondelpark to send messages to departed loved ones. History is another way to remember the dead. It’s…
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A Reading List
My novel The Dancing Girl and the Turtle is set in Shanghai 1937. Does any story set in the past qualify as historical fiction? Hilary Mantel says historical fiction must do far more than dredge up the past: A relation of past events bring[s] you up against events and mentalities that, should you choose to describe…