Speed of Lightness

A window on modern
Japan, this off-kilter, anti-sentimental literary thriller is an eye-opening
journey into the hinterlands of a postmodern nation.

Kyoto
University student Aozora Fujiwara has been playing too much mah-jong and now
he’s deep in debt.

When Aunt Okane (‘money’) dies and leaves a collection of
priceless art to him and his sister, Mai, he thinks his problems are solved.
But they’re only just beginning- Mai’s disappeared and he can’t liquidate the
estate without her. The quest that ensues takes Aozora to the deep south of
Japan and the unlikely setting of a Dutch theme park called, Amsterland… The
joy in Sherwood’s tale is in Aozora’s madcap journey, during which he meets a
slew of silly-and often sinister-souls. Among them- an oyster-loving
businessman who sells lifelike inflatable dolls, and a corpulent crime boss
who looks like a cross between Liberace and Kim Jong-Il.

In his carefully
woven descriptions, Sherwood shows unusual insight into a fast-changing society of disaffected youth and sleazy
governance. This picaresque on steroids offers a refreshingly irreverent look
at contemporary life in a not entirely implausible Japan.