An American Branch
An American Branch
Kenneth Wayne (author)
Product Description
The Japanese post-war economic miracle halted in the 1990s, a time that has been called the “lost decade” by many. Although the country suffered a severe downturn, it was still flush with revenue, so certain sectors prospered. Due to the belief that college ensured a successful career and to the large number of young people at the time, higher education was in great demand. The domestic universities were unable to handle the short-term surge, so some Japanese companies formed joint-ventures with dozens of foreign universities to provide an “international” alternative.
An American Branch finds Wayne’s everyman, Charles Journeyman, as the director of an English language program at a new American university branch in Osaka. He is happily married to a lovely Japanese woman, but their inability to have children has created a distance between them. This increases as Journeyman becomes busier with work. Unexpectedly, he is given a seductive reward for fulfilling his duties. With this begins an emotional roller coaster full of thrills and perils involving shady business dealings, love hotels, modified fallout shelters, boogie bars, small towns, urban nightlife, illicit drugs, deception, revenge, and rumors of incest. Nothing remains the same, or does it?
In An American Branch, Wayne provides the reader with a glimpse of what life might have been like if you lived in Japan in the 1990s as an early middle-aged, Caucasian-American male with little by way of a moral compass beyond what you accumulated during the Cold War era as a member of the Woodstock generation. This novel contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.
Product Details
Ebook
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 431 KB
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B005J6J2N6
Available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble and Smashwords.
Review
Gripping and shocking, October 17, 2011
By Poppet "Poppet"
Wow. This is one heavily loaded dramatic read. The main character Charles is an American teacher in Japan, and this book follows his downward spiral into hell.
He seems just like every other guy, caught up in his work and the logistical problems of the college he's teaching at, and having that awkward distance appearing between himself and his wife.
Up to this point, you don't really have a relationship with him. Then he makes the first of a series of potentially volatile and damaging decisions. It includes raunchy sex with a grateful mother (of one of his students), it has him backstabbing his boss, and entering into his lost youth when he starts smoking pot and taking LSD.
All things considered, he's lucky he got off as lightly as he did.
This book is a delightful sojourn into Japan, the food, the lifestyle, and the gorgeous beauty of the place - Highlighted starkly against the US midwest.
But the twists continue, and as a reader you feel it. Wholeheartedly ensconced in Charles' life, you want to shake him, and your insides contract when you discover the horror at the end.
What a way to end a book.
It was a wild ride, one I could not anticipate from the book's blurb. Nothing prepares you for how candid and gut wrenching this read is.
This book turns you into a voyeur, witnessing the best and worst moments of this man's life.
It was well written and compelling.
