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The Earthquake Bird
 
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The Earthquake Bird (Hardcover)

by Susanna Jones (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Picador (25 May 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330485016
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330485012
  • Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 14 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,223,891 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
While many novelists are content these days to merely sketch in a few rudimentary characteristics for their protagonists, it's refreshing to encounter a book as ambitious as Susanna Jones' remarkable thriller The Earthquake Bird, which has no truck with such cursoriness. The central character in Jones' novel, Lucy Fly, is not only realised with richness and subtlety, but the reader is even allowed to change their mind about her as the revelations of the tale unfold--a rarity indeed these days. Not only that, Jones' book (her debut novel) is concisely written, making the amount she crams into this slim volume even more striking.

Set in Japan, The Earthquake Bird begins with an earth-tremor on its first page that echoes metaphorically through the book. Lucy is a young and insecure translator straining to survive in the bustling, impersonal city of Tokyo. She becomes the principal suspect in a murder case when her best friend Lily is killed. Initially, her dealings with the police present her as vulnerable and ill at ease (she has a quirky way of talking about herself in the third person), but revelations about her past begin to pull the metaphorical rug from beneath the reader's feet.

Jones' publishers invoke Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory in promoting the book, and the comparisons are not far-fetched. Like Banks' disturbing novel, the revelations here really do take the breath away. But there's more on offer than complex storytelling. Principally, this is a study of the mysteries of human character, and the ambiguity with which Lucy is presented has all of the skill that distinguished the brilliant novels of Iris Murdoch. Tokyo, too, is evoked with intriguing detail--the perfect backdrop for the steadily unfolding narrative:

The killer had a street stand selling noodles. He also had a dead body to dispose of. In order to avoid the fingerprint problem he had hacked off the corpse's hands. He then proceeded to boil the outer layers of skin off the hands by dropping them into the hot noodle broth, on the street, under the unknowing eyes of his hungry customers.
--Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
A haunting psychological crime novel. The Earthquake Bird is a debut which has caused an international sensation pre-publication. "Early this morning, several hours before my arrest, I was woken up 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 the form of 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 this chilling 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. A novel inbued with the chill of The Wasp Factory and the shock of The Sculptress, this is the debut of a major new talent.

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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping, haunting, psychological thriller., 30 April 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: The Earthquake Bird (Paperback)
Set against a surreal backdrop of present day Japan, The Earthquake Bird opens with Lucy Fly, the narrator and main character, under arrest in a Japanese police station. Lucy is an English translator who seems content and competent with her new life in the East.

We know that something terrible has happened and Lucy is the prime suspect. As she tells her story, more and more details come to light about Lucy, her friends Lily and Teiji, and the reasons why she emigrated to Japan ten years previously. We are taken back to Lucy's solitary childhood in Yorkshire and events of her old life that still haunt her. Not everything about Lucy Fly is what it seems, I found myself hating her and loving her with the turn of each page!

Susanna Jones' prose has a refreshingly urgent pace, and child-like clarity. At the end, the reader is left feeling like they have been given a guided tour of Tokyo; of its language, noodle bars, tower blocks and transport system.

The Earthquake Bird is relatively short, but narrated in exquisite detail without a superfluous word, reminiscent of Barbara Vine at her darkest.

I found myself reading 'just one more chapter' until I had reached its thrilling climax in one sitting. A must read for anyone with an interest in Japanese culture or the complexities of the human mind. Superb!

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars delicate, evocative thriller, 1 Mar 2004
By RachelWalker "RachelW" (England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: The Earthquake Bird (Paperback)
This story begins with the arrest of Lucy Fly, a translator living in modern-day Japan, for the murder of a fellow English woman. It is while sitting in her police cell that she narrates this wonderful story to us. It's written beautifully, and there is not a superfluous word. It's told simply, yet powerfully and is strangely moving at times. The depiction of modern-day Tokyo is excellent, and this is another example of a wonderfully writer who is able to breathe life into their setting and really make the place LIVE.

It has touches of a Barbara Vine novel about it all, in that we never really know what truly happened, but we have ideas about what could have. All the while, the real truth is hidden, and while we may have our suspicions, the writer is still able to reveal all in a way that makes the revelation seem a great shock. The plot, matching the writing style, is simple yet engrossing, and it's told brilliantly, with a wonderful mixture of flashbacks. the narrator moves between the past and present seamlessly, telling us exactly what we want to know at exactly the right time.

I loved this book. It was refreshingly different from much that i've read, and told in a wonderful style. The setting is great, the characters also. The only thing which got to me slightly was that sometimes, in her narration, Lucy referred to herself as "I" while she would occasionally she would slip into the third person and talk about herself as "Lucy". However, my brief annoyance with it was exactly that, brief. I'd reccomend this to anyone. It certainly deserved its win of the CWA Debut dagger award.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Intense and interesting., 24 May 2001
By Paul99 (Southampton) - See all my reviews
I don't normally enjoy the train journey from Newcastle to Kings Cross, but I read this all the way and it was ace.

Given how complex the story is I found it easy to read, probably because it's so neatly written and brilliantly plotted.

The central character Lucy Fly is a strange fish, the type you're glad is tucked up in the pages so you can get to know her without having to meet.

Since reading it I've also bought it as a birthday present and lent my copy to a mate straight away - what more recommendation can I give? I think I'll be telling people about this book for months to come.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest voice
I don't like crime novels. This is an exception. It says a novel of mystery on the cover. Perhaps I like mystery novels. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Lou Ice

3.0 out of 5 stars An unusual but gripping murder mystery
Did she do it, or didn't she? This is the one question that propels the reader to keep turning the pages in this unusual but gripping murder mystery. Read more
Published on 21 Feb 2005 by kimbofo

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as the hype
I enjoyed this but to compare it to The Wasp Factory is a bit much. It really does not have the depth or invoke the sense of unease that Banks managed in his superior first... Read more
Published on 7 Oct 2003 by Jimmy Sclaff

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting
This is an impressive debut novel. It's elliptical and elusive, but it haunted me for ages after I finished reading it. Read more
Published on 25 Sep 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful Tokyo story
I loved this book. It is a novel that works beautifully in so many different ways. Lucy Fly is one of the most fascinating first person narrators I have come across. Read more
Published on 25 Sep 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful first outing by a new author
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... Read more
Published on 17 Sep 2001 by Sleuth029 (dfk029@yahoo.com)

2.0 out of 5 stars Too slow, the build up far too one-note
Much of this book is covered in flashbacks by the main character, Lucy Fly, covering her general life and background while under investigation for murder. Read more
Published on 15 Sep 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars An eerie story
A real gem of a page-turner, this sinister murder mystery takes place in Tokyo, and Susanna Jones successfully captures many feelings of the ex-pat without sounding cliched. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars I haven't enjoyed a novel this much for years.
The Earthquake Bird is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read. First of all, it is an absolutely unputdownable read. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book
My own first novel was published around the same time as the Earthquake Bird, and the two books were reviewed together in a couple of newspapers. Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2001 by hugo.wilcken@libertysurf.fr

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