Why did the woman in the restaurant scream? Why is the man falsely charged guilty? The empty cafe fills; reason unravels. In the novella Solitude, the last of eight tales in this volume, Solomon Rose returns home after 22 years to confront a dilemma soluble only by murder.
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Reviews of "Little Pieces: This Side of Japan," along with other things hopefully of interest, are posted at www.michaelhoffman.squarespace.com
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhere between fantasy and reality,
By
This review is from: The Empty Cafe (Paperback)
This group of stories take place somewhere between fantasy and reality.A man goes away to school and eventually becomes a history professor, losing touch with his younger brother. One day, he opens the newspaper and sees a picture of little brother, fronting a popular rock music band. Overnight, the older brother's life is turned upside down, as he goes from being an average college professor to brother of a famous rock star. A westerner living in Japan, accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, watches as his innocence slowly disappears. A woman and her fiance are eating in an [trendy] restaurant. Suddenly, she notices an older gentleman a few tables away and screams. The fiance takes her home immediately, and after a good night's sleep, it's as if the incident in the restaurant never happened. A couple of times, the woman says "I won't hurt you," for seemingly no reason at all. The object of her emotional reaction, an actor, appeared in a film a few years previously. It's about a man who befriends a little girl, takes her shopping for a doll, then drugs her, undresses her and photographs her, but otherwise doesn't harm her. A police officer in present-day Bangkok, Thailand, after reuniting a lost boy with his frantic parents, tells of how his own son, a schizophrenic, committed suicide. Perhaps those who hear voices in their heads are the sane ones, and the rest of us, who can't hear them, are insane. These stories are really good. Hoffman has done a fine job throughout. They are easy to read, with real people as characters and are highly recommended.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Where does the author think he's taking us?,
By "mh73" (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Empty Cafe (Paperback)
The Empty Cafe is a collection of short stories by a writer I (and probably you) had never heard of - Michael Hoffman. The first impression you get as you read is how musical and flowing the prose is. The second is of being in a strange place without being able to put your finger on where exactly the strangeness lies - everything is familiar, and at the same time not. I would have to - and I plan to - read the book again before I try to explain how the author achieves this effect - if in fact this is an effect he has sought to achieve. A family touring Bangkok suddenly loses their son - has he vanished down a manhole, or what? A staid, up and coming professor opens the paper one Sunday to find his much younger brother transformed into a grotesque, wildly popular rock star. A foreigner living in Japan is accused of assaulting a young girl. The accusation is false. So why is he (as he seems to be) guilty? A cafe waitress has had every experience there is to have except one: she hasn't seduced her kid brother, and she seems to want to. Where does the author think he's taking us?The final story in the collection is a novella entitled Solitude. It is a murder story, but no detective could ever possibly solve it. I came across this book by chance, and found myself getting into it as I idly skimmed. I haven't decided yet if it is profound or pseudo-profound. I'm still thinking about it.
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