American Fuji

by Sara Backer

Overview

Japan itself is the comic hero of this sweet and funny, sad and inspiring novel.

Gaby Stanton, an American professor living in Japan, has lost her job teaching English at Shizuyama University. (No one will tell her exactly why.) Alex Thorn, an American psychologist, is mourning his son, a Shizuyama exchange student who was killed in an accident. (No one will tell him exactly how.) Alex has come to this utterly foreign place to find the truth, and now Gaby is serving as his translator and guide. The key to mastering Japanese, she keeps telling him, is understanding what's not being said. And in this "deft and delightful" (Karen Joy Fowler) novel, the unsaid truths about everything from work and love to illness and death cast a deafening silence-and tower in the background like Mount Fuji itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101204047
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/05/2002
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	476 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sara Backer was the first American and the first woman to serve as visiting professor of English at Japan's Shizuoka University. An early draft of American Fuji was named a finalist in the James Jones First Novel Competition, and a play she wrote as a Djerassi artist in residence was chosen for performance at the Edward Albee Theatre Conference in June 2000. A published poet and short-story writer, Backer lives in New Hampshire.

Read an Excerpt

AMERICAN FUJI
by Sara Backer

 

INTRODUCTION

Gaby Stanton, an American professor living in Japan, has lost her job teaching English at Shizuyama University. (No one will tell her exactly why.) Alex Thorn, an American psychologist, is mourning his son, a Shizuyama exchange student killed in an accident. (No one will tell him exactly how.) Alex has come to this utterly foreign place to find the truth, and now Gaby—newly employed at a Japanese "fantasy funeral" company—is his guide. Gaby, at least, can speak the language, though as she explains to Alex, the key to mastering Japanese is understanding what's not being said. And in this dazzling, unusual novel, the unsaid truths about everything from work and love to illness and death cast a deafening silence—and tower in the background like Mount Fuji itself.

 

ABOUT SARA BACKER

Sara Backer was the first American and the first woman to serve as visiting professor of English at Japan's Shizuoka University. An early draft of American Fuji was named a finalist in the James Jones First Novel Competition, and a play she wrote as a Djerassi artist in residence was chosen for performance at the Edward Albee Theatre Conference in June 2000. A published poet and short-story writer, Backer lives in San Luis Obispo, California.

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. In what ways does Gaby Stanton typify an American living abroad? How does her perspective on Japanese culture compare to Alexander Thorn's? How do their attitudes change as their relationship develops?
   

2. How do Gaby and Alex's social positions—single American adults—affect them differently in Japan? How do their professional lives affect how they are perceived and how they behave? Does gender play a role? How?
   

3. In what ways does Gaby's "shameful illness" (p. 247) impact her relationships with others? With herself? How is her relationship to her body a reflection of the culture she lives in? Discuss.
   

4. Early in the narrative, Gaby says to Lester: "How many people are happy, no matter where they are? Overall, my life is better in Japan than it was in America. Isn't that good enough?" (p. 30). Is this sentiment sincere? Does her perspective on happiness change over the course of the story?
   

5. How do obligation and affection overlap in Gaby's relationship with Alexander Thorn? With Mr. Eguchi? With Lester? In what ways are her expectations challenged by this duality?
   

6. In what ways is Alexander Thorn's life altered by his quest for answers about his son's death? How is Mr. Aoshima's appearance on Mount Fuji meaningful?
   

7. "America's not my home," Gaby tells Mr. Eguchi (p. 337). Japan is not her home either, she goes on to admit. What factors contribute to her emerging comfort in the role of exile? Alex ends the book by looking "to the east, facing home." How has the idea of home changed for him as a result of his time in Japan?
   

8. How has Gaby's relationship to her home been challenged by the loss of her prestigious university job? By her relationship with Alex? By her illness? How does her behavior in her apartment reflect these changes?
   

9. Are Rie's deformed foot, Aoshima's new heart, and Endo's suicide attempts significant? How? In what ways are they emblematic of Gaby's admonition to "Expect the unexpected?" What is Gaby's reaction to unexpected events in her own life?
   

10. Musical toilets, English-as-Beatles-lyrics, moon funerals: to what extent do these absurd-seeming aspects of Japanese culture reflect the prejudices of the narrator herself? Is Gaby Stanton a reliable interpreter of Japanese manners and mores? Why or why not?

Reading Group Guide

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. In what ways does Gaby Stanton typify an American living abroad? How does her perspective on Japanese culture compare to Alexander Thorn's? How do their attitudes change as their relationship develops?
   
   
2. How do Gaby and Alex's social positions-single American adults-affect them differently in Japan? How do their professional lives affect how they are perceived and how they behave? Does gender play a role? How?
   
   
3. In what ways does Gaby's "shameful illness" (p. 247) impact her relationships with others? With herself? How is her relationship to her body a reflection of the culture she lives in? Discuss.
   
   
4. Early in the narrative, Gaby says to Lester: "How many people are happy, no matter where they are? Overall, my life is better in Japan than it was in America. Isn't that good enough?" (p. 30). Is this sentiment sincere? Does her perspective on happiness change over the course of the story?
   
   
5. How do obligation and affection overlap in Gaby's relationship with Alexander Thorn? With Mr. Eguchi? With Lester? In what ways are her expectations challenged by this duality?
   
   
6. In what ways is Alexander Thorn's life altered by his quest for answers about his son's death? How is Mr. Aoshima's appearance on Mount Fuji meaningful?
   
   
7. "America's not my home," Gaby tells Mr. Eguchi (p. 337). Japan is not her home either, she goes on to admit. What factors contribute to her emerging comfort in the role of exile? Alex ends the book by looking "to the east, facing home." How has the idea of home changed for him as a result of his time in Japan?
   
   
8. How has Gaby's relationship to her home been challenged by the loss of her prestigious university job? By her relationship with Alex? By her illness? How does her behavior in her apartment reflect these changes?
   
   
9. Are Rie's deformed foot, Aoshima's new heart, and Endo's suicide attempts significant? How? In what ways are they emblematic of Gaby's admonition to "Expect the unexpected?" What is Gaby's reaction to unexpected events in her own life?
   
   
10. Musical toilets, English-as-Beatles-lyrics, moon funerals: to what extent do these absurd-seeming aspects of Japanese culture reflect the prejudices of the narrator herself? Is Gaby Stanton a reliable interpreter of Japanese manners and mores? Why or why not?

Editorial Reviews

A lively debut about the innocence of Americans abroad in modern Japan. Gaby Stanton, a 36-year-old expatriate in her fifth year of teaching English at a small Japanese university, is peremptorily fired. No explanation furnished. No appeal possible. Well,"This is Japan, expect the unexpected," she's been told often enough to have become a believer. Unexpectedly, then, she lands a job at a company called Gone With the Wind, owned and operated by one Mr. Eguchi, cool, shrewd, and, it turns out, yakuza-connected (read: mafia). She's to sell fantasy funerals, suddenly a hot status symbol among affluent Japanese. For a fix on the degree of affluence, Eguchi counsels the ever-reliable toilet test whenever Gaby makes a house call:"Toilets tell truth about people," he insists. Enter dour, straitlaced Alex Thorn, psychologist, and author of Why Love Fails, a self-help book that developed out of his own bitter experience. Alex is in Japan to investigate the presumably accidental death of his college-aged son, a death surrounded by mysterious circumstances. Whatever these are, Gone With the Wind appears to be at the heart of the case, especially since Alex has a bill from the company"for services rendered" that also seem shrouded in mystery. Alex wants answers. Pretty soon, Gaby finds herself wanting to help. And, to her surprise—skeptical as she is about the opposite sex—finds herself attracted to him. In the days that follow, Gaby and Alex learn enough about the so-called accident to be certain it involves a money-making scam of considerable significance. They also learn a good deal about each other. As for dour Alex, he lightens up, discovering more than he everthoughtpossibleabout coming to terms with the unexpected. While cultures clash, love flourishes: a funny, warmhearted first novel just a bit overlength.

Kirkus Reviews