The Earthquake Bird [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Susanna Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

'Early this morning, several hours before my arrest, I was woken by an earth tremor. I mention the incident not to suggest that there was a connection that somehow the fault lines in my life came crashing together in a form of a couple of policemen for in Tokyo we have a quake like this every month. I am simply relating the sequence of events as it happened. It has been an unusual day and I would hate to forget anything ...' So begins The Earthquake Bird, a haunting novel set in Japan which reveals a murder on its first page and takes its readers into the mind of the chief suspect, Lucy Fly a young, vulnerable English girl living and working in Tokyo as a translator. As Lucy is interrogated by the police she reveals her past to the reader, and it is a past which is dangerously ambiguous and compromising ...Why did Lucy leave England for the foreign anonymity of Japan ten years before, and what exactly had prompted her to sever all links with her family back home? She was the last person to see the murdered girl alive, so why was she not more forthcoming about the circumstances of their last meeting? As Lucy's story unfolds, it emerges that secrets, both past and present, obsess her waking life. A novel imbued with the chill of The Wasp Factory and the shock of The Sculptress, this is the debut of a major new talent. 'The sentences may be lean and spare, but the murder on the first page heralds a weight and menace to this story that's strangely chilling ...This is a very compelling debut' Elle 'Fast paced and claustrophobic ...a subtle portrait of how jealousy blooms from nothing' The Times 'Compulsively imaginative ...a beautiful and compelling novel' Colin Dexter 'You'll find this story still lurking in the dark corners of your mind long after you've put the book down' Face

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, August 2001: A bestseller in England, Susanna Jones's first novel is one of those books that grips you while you read and stays with you long after you've finished.

Lucy Fly is an English woman working as a translator in Tokyo. When the story opens she has been arrested for the murder of another English woman, Lily Bridges, whose partial remains have just been found. As Lucy is interrogated, she tells of her childhood in Yorkshire, her ability with languages, and her escape from her drab life to the relative anonymity of living in Japan. She also talks about her friendships: with the Japanese women with whom she works and sometimes socializes; with Teiji, a photographer with whom she is having an affair; and with Lily, who comes from the same part of Yorkshire as Lucy and who reminds Lucy of everything she is trying to escape.

And yet Lucy is drawn to Lily. Lily is working as a bartender, but in England she was a nurse and, when the two of them go on a hike together and Lucy is hurt, she is made comfortable by Lily's attentions. Even as we listen to Lucy, we feel that she may be hiding something from us. She doesn't tell us a great deal about her affair with Teiji, for instance. In fact, she admits that she doesn't remember much of their conversations, although she tells us that they must have talked a lot since she knows so much about him. Also disconcerting is her strange habit of lapsing into the third person when talking about herself.

As she reveals what she knows to the police--and to the reader--they, and we, become increasingly uncomfortable. The more we know about Lucy, the less we understand about her relationships with Teiji and Lily. When we finally do understand some of what she is saying, we are shocked.

This little gem of a book is a startlingly good debut. --Otto Penzler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

"If Lily had never met me she would be alive now," says Lucy Fly, the narrator of Jones's intriguing debut. She is being interrogated by Tokyo police for her friend Lily's murder. Making matters worse, Lucy's lover, Teiji, has also gone missing. Ten years ago, Lucy left behind an unhappy life in Yorkshire, England, to lose herself in the exotic, anonymous bustle of a faraway city. Now in her 30s, she is content with her job as a translator and her otherwise Spartan existence, fixating on Teiji, a photographer and loner rather like herself. Then she meets Lily, who also comes from Yorkshire and is on the lam from her stalker boyfriend. At first Lucy resents this reminder of her past, but she soon grows attached to the lonely, insecure girl. Lucy is full of contradictions: though once sexually promiscuous, she is jealous of Teiji's ex-lover, a mysterious woman who only seems to exist in his photographs. Jones's pacing is skillful and deliberate as she replays the troubling moments from Lucy's past distant and recent that seem to point to her guilt (for instance, Lily is not the first person of her acquaintance to have met an unfortunate end). The descriptions of Japan's landscapes, language, people and customs are delivered with fluency and intimacy, yet with the slightly detached clarity of an expat. Some readers may find Jones's intermingling of first- and third-person narration self-conscious and distracting "What I had chosen to share with him was my very first sexual encounter, Lucy's first crunch into the apple" and the hazy ending raises more questions than it answers. But this is less a whodunit than an examination of the slippery nature of truth and memory, obsessions and betrayals, all of which Jones handles with confidence and skill. National print advertising.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 236 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786241365
• ISBN-13: 978-0786241361
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,221,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional first outing for a new author, September 8, 2001

By 

D. Kaplan "sleuth029" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Earthquake Bird (Hardcover)

I read "The Earthquake Bird" when it was first released in the UK. I normally wouldn't consider writing a review of a book that I had read months ago but in this case the distance works very well. This is a book that just gets better the more you think about it...and think about it you will.

Lucy Fly is a British woman who fled England years ago to live in Japan. Lucy is an enigmatic and detached character who, although allowing us to stroll through her mind, very rarely allows us to enter her heart or her soul. During the many years she has lived in Tokyo, she has made few friends and her central relationship is her affair with Teiji, a man who lives his life through his photographs. Lily Bridges, a young woman escaping her own personal hell in England, enters the lives of these lovers. In doing so, this seemingly naive young woman is the catalyst for the "earthquake" that upsets Lucy's claustrophobic and rather controlled life. For this, it would seem that poor Lily may have paid with her life.

This tightly-woven story unfolds at a slow and steady pace. While often sounding dispassionate, there is an undercurrent of electricity lurking beneath every word. Although it is a tale of passion, rage and obsession, emotions I associate with blazing colors, the story is told in muted shades of black and white. In the film noir style, there are scenes shrouded in a haze of fog, masked in gauze or with slim rays of light falling across small enclosed spaces. While there is no single stunning moment in "The Earthquake Bird," the story in itself is stunning.

At first I was thinking of comparing Ms. Jones' writing to that of Minette Walters, Barbara Vine or Nicci French but, on reflection, I believe that her storytelling skills are far more subtle. This is an extraordinary first outing and I anxiously await Ms. Jones' next book.

Make no mistake about it, "The Earthquake Bird" is Lucy's story and hers alone. She is the narrator and all that happens in the book is in her voice and seen through her eyes. If you want to take a walk on the dark side, I would strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of "The Earthquake Bird" and spend some time with Lucy.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CHILLINGLY COMPELLING, April 2, 2002

By 

Larry L. Looney (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Earthquake Bird (Hardcover)

Lucy Fly, the narrator and center of Susanna Jones debut novel, is a disturbing character -- and the tension with which the author builds this fact within the story is a sure indicator that there is a formidable talent at work here. Lucy, a transplanted English woman living in Tokyo, is easily seen as a bit of an oddity from the start -- the things she focuses on, the way she relates the story itself, her relationships with her (few) friends and her lover. She repeatedly refers to herself in the third person, giving an eerie feeling of detatchment to her narrative, allowing the reader to step back and watch the story unfold much like viewing a film.

The mystery involved is not, I think, given away as early in the book as another reviewer opined below -- the scenario to which that review occurred to me, but others did as well, and I felt the options were all believable enough that the tension held me until the book wound to its close.

The author's knowledge of Japanese language and culture added a lot of body to the story -- but she was careful not to let it overpower the plot. I felt involved in the novel as it unfolded, not like I was reading a travel book. The darkness at the heart of her narrator was palpable and real -- and she came across as both sypathetic and frightening.

As I mentioned, I got a very cinematic feel from the work -- if that happens, I hope it's placed in the hands of a capable director. It could be as gripping on the screen as on the printed page.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great mini version of a ruth rendell novel, December 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Earthquake Bird (Hardcover)

This book was incredibly readable (able to do it in one sitting) and I found it to be a very engrossing tale. Kind of like an unfleshed out version of a Ruth Rendell novel, with all of the psychological insight that implies, it truly is until the last several pages that you understand the pathos and horror of who Lucy is and how her obsessive relationship with her photographer/noodle shop worker has evolved and what terrible secrets she holds. It is a good working on the desires and obesssions and madness that can engulf even the most ordinary seeming people and the depths of the human heart and all encompassing need for love and sex we all possess. first class novel, my only feeling is that in the hands of a Ruth Rendell it could have encompassed more than it did and gone on longer. but still for a couple of hours you will really get inside the mind and emotions of the narrator and as a bonus, see for yourself what it is like to be living in Japan. excellent novel.