Exit A

Exit A

This book is a decidedly mixed proposition, and that's assuming you make it past the halfway mark. The first half of this debut fiction novel is concerned with 17-year-olds Severin Boxx and Virginia Sachiko Kindwall. The live in Yokota, an American air base on the outskirts of Tokyo, circa 1989. He's a star football player and son of a colonel. She's the half American and half-Japanese daughter of the base's general. Sparks of attraction inevitably flare up between the two. But the course of young love never runs smooth. Virginia, who is going through a rebellious phase, acts out in a desperate and reckless fashion that changes everyone's lives. Unfortunately, Swofford's pedestrain style of writing never really draws the reader in. He fails to fully convey the passion and excitement of youth gone astray. Instead, his oddly flat prose and stilted dialogue detract from the story. After getting past the very long exposition, the latter half of the book jumps forward in time and deals with consequences and redemption. This is where it starts to get interesting as Severin goes into a downward spiral while Virginia picks up the pieces of her life. Still, the same irritants remain, though mitigated by the twists and turns of the plot. And the ending, shot through with optimism and naivete, is just too neat and tidy.

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