Page 84 - Publishers_Weekly

Review_NONFICTION

ONLINE crack-ravaged broader world of college sports, it distracts
NOW www.publishersweekly.com Staten Island from the narrative. Ottaway is certainly
neighborhood; an affable and trustworthy guide but
FICTION he dealt drugs readers will be left wanting more. Agent:
Into the Fire Elizabeth Moon. Del Rey, ISBN 978- as a teenager, Laurie Abkemeier, DeFiore and Co. (Mar.)
1-101-88734-9, Feb.
eventually run-
Long Shot Kelly Jamieson. Loveswept, ISBN 978- ning a mini- ★ A Tokyo Romance: A Memoir
0-399-59443-4, Feb.
empire. During Ian Buruma. Penguin Press, $26 (256p)
The Wedding Date Jasmine Guillory. Berkley, this time, ISBN 978-1-101-98141-2
ISBN 978-0-399-58766-5, Feb. Hawkins and New York Review of Books editor Buruma
his friend reflects on his immersion in the artistic
Hidden Depths: A Vera Stanhope Mystery
Ann Cleeves. Minotaur, ISBN 978-1-250-13517-9, Method Man underworlds of late 1970s Tokyo in this
Jan. honed their rap skills. They joined other lucid, engrossing memoir. A bored uni-
determined, songwriters to form the versity student from the Netherlands,
Neogenesis Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Baen,
ISBN 978-1-4814-8278-3, Jan. Wu-Tang Clan. Along the way, Hawkins Buruma was intrigued by the exotic
spent a year in prison for drug possession Japan of film and stage and moved to a
Tribute Act: A Porthkennack Contemporary and, sometime after, was admitted to a country caught between dizzying eco-
Joanna Chambers. Riptide, ISBN 978-1-62649-
684-2, Jan. mental institution after he was found nomic growth and the student uprisings
wandering around his neighborhood in a that followed. On his way to artistic
Slip B.A. Tortuga. Dreamspinner, ISBN 978-1- bathrobe (“Maybe one of my girlfriends maturity, Buruma befriended gay expat
63533-801-0, Dec.
poisoned me”); he became a father and aesthetes, fashion photographers, Buto
NONFICTION later dated Janet Jackson, on whom he dancers, and underground theater
This Is M. Sasek: The Extraordinary Life had had a crush as a kid. Hawkins is a troupes, his fluent Japanese providing
and Travels of the Beloved Children’s Book wonderful storyteller who spares no detail access to milieus few Westerners ever
Illustrator Olga Cerná, Pavel Ryška, and Martin
Salisbury, trans. from the Czech by Martina and (he writes of using plastic wrap as a pro- encountered. Throughout the narrative,
Stuart Nicholson. Universe, ISBN 978-0-7893- phylactic), and his willingness to share his readers learn nearly as much about
3427-5, Feb. wisdom in nonsaccharine terms yields an Buruma’s occasional male lovers as they
inspirational coming-of-age story. Agent: do about a Japanese girlfriend he lived
A Place for All People: Life, Architecture,
and the Fair Society Richard Rogers, with Marc Gerald, United Talent Agency. (Mar.) with (and later married). Bisexual and half
Richard Brown. Canongate, ISBN 978-1-78211- “Anglo-German-Jewish,” Buruma had
693-6, Jan.
The Rebounders: always felt remote from his Dutch coun-
Rescuing Retirement: A Plan to Guarantee A Division I Basketball Journey trymen, and he felt even more displaced
Retirement Security for All Americans Teresa Amanda Ottaway. Univ. of Nebraska, $29.95 among the
Ghilarducci and Tony James. Columbia Univ.,
ISBN 978-0-231-18564-6, Dec. (304p) ISBN 978-0-8032-9684-8 Japanese. Of
In this charming though uneven memoir, course, it was
making one psychosurgeon’s assessment Ottaway recalls her four years as a schol- exactly his dif-
particularly poignant: “You are a hero arship player, beginning in 2008, on ference that
until you are not.” Frank has written an Davidson College’s women’s basketball made him
excellent, balanced portrait of an inventive team. She shares stories of her emotional intriguing to
psychiatrist with a complicated legacy. and physical toil during the season, the fiercely
Agent: Peter Tallack, the Science Factory. (Mar.) dealing with a coaching staff that breeds tribal artistic
discord (“I believed that coach Katz loved enclaves he
★ Raw: us in her way. I just didn’t think she knew explored; as
My Journey into the Wu-Tang how to show us... her competitiveness Buruma freely
Lamont “U-God” Hawkins. Picador, $26 came off as plain old hurtful”), stressing admits, having John Schlesinger (Midnight
(304p) ISBN 978-1-250-19116-8 over her meager playing time, and real- Cowboy) for an uncle proved quite helpful
“I don’t consider myself an ex–drug izing that she and her teammates are in encounters with luminaries such as
dealer or an ex-criminal,” rapper Hawkins simply university “merchandise.” film directors Ju¯ro¯ Kara , Akira Kurosawa,
writes in this sage, fast-paced memoir. Ottaway relishes details—a strength and Shu¯ji Terayama. Yet even as this far-
“I consider myself to be an experienced coach boasts calves as “wide as cereal from-typical gaijin enjoyed the benefits
fucking person who went through a lot boxes”—and her description of the finan- of his ambiguous status, he came to
of hell to come out right and get where cial burden families face when a player understand that he would never be fully
I am today.” Hawkins, a member of the gets injured is eye-opening. Throughout, accepted. Buruma makes the archetypal
Wu-Tang Clan, describes New York she includes stories of her former team- quest for home in a foreign land both
during the less glamorous (and more dan- mates alongside those of her own strug- uniquely personal and deeply illuminating.
gerous) 1970s through the early 1990s, gles, a technique that works to varying Andrew Wylie, the Wylie Agency. (Mar.)
when lived with his single mother in a degrees: while it offers glimpses into the

76 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ JANU AR Y 22, 2018