Barrie Sherwood was born in 1971 in Hong Kong, the son of missionaries. He began Escape from Amsterdam while living in Fukuoka, Japan. He currently lives in England, where he teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia.
Aozora---idle university student, future crooked bureaucrat, fresh broken heart---has been playing too much mah-jongg and now finds himself deep in debt. When Auntie Okane dies and leaves him and his sister Mai a priceless inheritance, he thinks his problems are solved. But they’re only just beginning.
Mai’s disappeared, taken hostage by a notorious yakuza gang. Aozora can’t collect the cash without her and his loan sharks are becoming impatient. So begins a fast-paced adventure that takes him to the deep south of Japan and the surreal environs of a Dutch theme park called Amsterdam. It sounds like a holiday, but Aozora is about to enter the real world. . . .
Featuring the Japanese mob, motorcycle gangs, a phony princess, topiary dinosaurs, high-tech love dolls, and a selection of Japanese manga, Escape from Amsterdam is playful, offbeat, and thrilling. It paints a surprising portrait of contemporary Japan that few Westerners have seen and introduces a strikingly original and inventive writer.
“Complete with eccentric illustrations and a startling simile for every occasion that always hits the mark, this is an original work of an order that rarely emerges in this monochromatic age of political correctness. Read Escape from Amsterdam and be amazed, thrilled, and amused by an irreverent expert on a culture that remains an enigma to the rest of the world.” ---John Burdett, author of Bangkok 8
“Escape from Amsterdam is pure delight as a romp through the complex, conflicted world that is modern Japan, but its ultimate power lies in the subtle passages where Sherwood gives us an echo of haiku, the faint scent of the geisha, the glimpse of the repentant samurai adrift in the twenty-first century. Poignant, poetic, and fun.” ---Eliot Pattison, author of Prayer of the Dragon
“For readers who like to do their world traveling in bytes on the back of a clever novel, Sherwood is the perfect guide to what weirdness the twenty-first century has to offer. This magical bus ride of a story bounces you around inside the illogically con?icting cultures of Japan. You’d better hold on tight.” --Colin Cotterill, author of The Coroner’s Lunch
“The story of Aozora, who fights and flounders his way from the ivory towers of Kyoto University to the southern beaches of Kyushu, jumps to life with violence and kindness, humor and desperation. In his carefully woven descriptions, Barrie Sherwood shows great insight into a fast-changing society of disaffected youth and sleazy governance. This book will tell you what it’s like to live on the edge in twenty-?rst century Japan.” ---Niall Murtagh, author of The Blue-Eyed Salaryman
“Japanese theme parks, and Japan as theme park. From its opening mad dash in search of authentic oysters to the hyper-reality of life-size love dolls, this is a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining journey into a postmodern nation. Eclectic, eccentric, and always fun. A wonderful, wonderful read.” ---Will Ferguson, author of Hokkaido Highway Blues
Barrie Sherwood discusses Escape from Amsterdam on Meet the Author
Found in: Thriller
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