More from John Burnham Schwartz
With carefully crafted prose, John Burnham Schwartz brings to life the poignant experiences of his characters. Visit Amazon's John Burnham Schwartz Page.
When Alec Stern arrives in Japan, he discovers a land of opportunity. For only in Tokyo could an impressionable young man fresh out of college find, in one stroke, a new job, a new family, and a society that lavishes attention on Japanese-speaking gaijin. Yet, even as Alec claims a place in this new world, he is haunted by memories of the one he left behind—a world once infinitely secure but which disintegrated with the breakup of his parents' marriage.
In this incandescently observed novel, John Burnham Schwartz introduces readers to one of the most appealing protagonists in contemporary fiction while enchanting them with the keenness of his eye and the aptness of his voice. Through its exquisitely rendered scenes—a fishing trip of Zen-like serenity; a night at a sex club where giggling businessmen dive into the action—and vividly imagined characters—the laughing mother who taught Alec to ride a bicycle; the beautiful sad Japanese woman who teaches him how to love—Bicycle Days surprises, moves, and enlightens us as very few books do.
Fresh out of Yale, Alec Stern spends a summer working in an American computer company's Tokyo office. PW called this a "promising, if overly self-absorbed debut novel." Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Graceful ... reminiscent of Fitzgerald.... [It] leaves us holding our breath for more." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Luminous...linger[s] after the story is finished." —The New York Times Book Review
"Has freshness and energy...announces the debut of a bright new voice in fiction." —The New York Times
"Schwartz subtly evokes the stirrings and upheavals of a culture, and a person, in transition." —Detroit Free Press
John Burnham Schwartz grew up in New York City. At Harvard College, he majored in Japanese studies, and upon graduation accepted a position with a prominent Wall Street investment bank, before finally turning the position down after selling his first novel. That book, BICYCLE DAYS, a coming of age story about a young American man in Japan, was published in 1989 on his 24th birthday. It went on to become a critically acclaimed bestseller.
RESERVATION ROAD, his second novel about a family tragedy and its aftermath, published in 1998, was also critically acclaimed and a bestseller, and in 2007 it was made into a major motion picture based on Schwartz's screenplay. The film starred Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, and was directed by Terry George.
Schwartz went on to publish CLAIRE MARVEL, a love story set in America and France, and, in 2008, THE COMMONER, a novel inspired by the lives of the current empress and crown princess of Japan. Spanning seventy years of modern Japanese history and looking deep into the secret, ancient world of the Japanese Imperial Family, THE COMMONER has won Schwartz the best reviews and sales of his career.
In July of 2011, Random House will publish Schwartz's fifth novel, NORTHWEST CORNER, which picks up the lives of some of the characters from RESERVATION ROAD twelve years later. NORTHWEST CORNER is an urgent, powerful story about family bonds that can never be broken and the wayward roads that lead us back to those we love.
Schwartz's work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is a recipient of a Lyndhurst Prize for mastery in the art of fiction, and his journalism has appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, and Vogue.
Since writing the script for Reservation Road, Schwartz has become an accomplished screenwriter as well as a novelist. He has written screen adaptations of New York Times editor Dana Canedy's memoir "A Journal for Jordan," and Nancy Horan's bestselling novel Loving Frank for Sony Pictures and Lionsgate, respectively. He is currently creating a dramatic television series for Showtime, inspired by Den of Thieves, James Stewart's acclaimed account of the insider-trading corruption scandal of the 1980s.
Schwartz has taught fiction writing at Harvard, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Sarah Lawrence College, and he is the literary director of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference, one of the leading literary festivals in the United States.
He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, screenwriter and food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano, and their son, Garrick.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 starsNice descriptions of places, but characters are stilted, July 29, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Bicycle Days (Paperback)
I read the author's book "Reservation Road" and was blown away by it. This book was a big disappointment and I had to force myself to complete it. Having spent some time living in Japan, I enjoyed the descriptions of daily life, which are vivid. However, the characters seem to be pieces on a game board who are moved around artificially without motivations that ring true. Alternately the main character is thuddingly dull, or maddeningly self-involved. The characters around him are all very one-note, particularly the young women who seem to exist only for his pleasure. Read "Reservation Road," which is outstanding, and avoid this earlier effort at all costs.
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The story of an American transplanted into Japanese society is a fascinating idea, and the author's descriptions of Tokyo and Japanese life and customs lived up to my expectations. The main character (Alec) however, seemed to be a stereotypical insensitive American, with not much feeling for anyone but himself. The other thing that got to me was the alternating of stories from Alec's childhood with the main action. It seems to be a popular technique, telling two stories in one, but it's not easy to pull off. In many of these novels, including Bicycle Days, I felt the author kept interrupting me in the middle of what I was interested in to drag me back to obscure past incidents that seemed irrelevant. As a reader I find this irritating. The only way it works is if the past story and the present one are equally interesting, or if the past contains some secret that is gradually being revealed and the author is building up the reader's suspense. Otherwise, divorced parents, loneliness at boarding school, sibling rivalry, the terrible angst of a rich WASP in New England, have been gone over so many times in so many books that this is no more than excess baggage.
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This is a book of contrasts. On the one hand, it is not your stereotypical story of a foreigner lost in Japan. The primary character, Alec, does speak Japanese and we get a sight (or perhaps a glimpse) of the world away from Roppongi and Nishi-Azabu. Apart from a few quasi-errors, I thought that descriptions of time spent away from the hackneyed gaijin hang-outs was the best part of the narrative.
At the same time Alec remains rather detached from (and ungrateful towards) many of the people around him, preferring to take advantage of beautiful down-on-their-luck women and be pandered to by mother-substitutes. As a result, he is probably not the most sympathetic of main heroes. The family break-up sub-plot was rather limp but realistic enough.
However the biggest failing in the novel is the almost total absence of humour. And Japan without a sense of humour is about as much fun as the drive from Narita to Central Tokyo.
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