- Paperback: 216 pages
- Publisher: Kodansha; 1 edition (Mar 30 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 477003086X
- ISBN-13: 978-4770030863
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #150,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Tendo, the daughter of a yakuza (mob) boss, grew up in 1970s and '80s Japan, living through the booms and busts of life on the wrong side of the law. Her first published work, Shoko uses unpracticed but appropriately blunt prose to memoir her exceedingly arduous life; readers will appreciate her restrained but powerful details, especially during some of the harsher scenes. From age 12 onwards, Shoko's life was enveloped in drug addiction, poverty, psychological and sexual abuse, miscarriage, attempted suicide and the deaths of many close family members, set against a backdrop of Japan's ultra-secretive yakuza society. Admiration and a detached style keep Tendo from exploring any resentment she might harbor toward her criminal father, which may prove off-putting for some, but feels entirely honest given the emotional trauma Tendo suffers, and is as revealing for what it includes as for what it doesn't. Emotionally complex and thoroughly heart-rending, this book is recommended for anyone searching for a more thorough and personal understanding of Japanese society, and its darker corners, than is offered by more popular Japanese imports (movies, comic books) featuring similar subject matter.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Raised with strict ideas of honor, [Tendo] was both spoiled and scolded by the tattooed men who frequented her family home. In response she joined a gang, took drugs and became the lover of several gangsters before near-fatal beatings and drug overdoses convinced her to change her life."
-Reuters
"Tendo . . . hails from a section of Japanese society that most of her compatriots would rather did not exist. Her story . . . shines a light into a dark and little understood corner of modern Japan."
-The Guardian
"Emotionally complex and thoroughly heart-rending, this book is recommended for anyone searching for a more thorough and personal understanding of Japanese society."
-Publishers Weekly
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
I was born in the winter of 1968, a yakuza's daughter. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I was born in the winter of 1968, a yakuza's daughter. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Realism at its harshest.,
By
This review is from: Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter (Paperback)
First of all, do not expect a well-written memoir. Even if it had been written well in Japanese (which, I gather it was not, as in the foreword the author apologizes for her poor writing), this would have been lost in translation.Do expect an incredibly compact, realistic and harsh telling of a rough life in a societal group that to my knowledge does not get written about by those intimately acquainted with it (not often, not by women). This was a difficult read, because it did not attempt to gloss over or in any way lighten the events recalled. Eye-opening, jarring, perhaps only those who have endured forms of abuse themselves can appreciate the levels of pain one simple sentence conveys without the pretension of long-winded adjectives.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
great book, great story,
By
This review is from: Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter (Paperback)
I have no idea what the other reviewer was talking about. Tendo's memoirs were amazing and very revealing about Japanese sub-culture and the Yakuza gang. Its basically her life story from her teens to adulthood, showing how and why she embraced the gang lifestyle and eventually decided to emerge from it, struggling to live an ordinary life. Having read it, I don't see how anyone could give this 1 star.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ostensibly rubbish,
By
This review is from: Yakuza Moon (Hardcover)
Poor literary writing skills and content that is conveys little sense of Japan or Japanese culture; resultantly, the setting, the experiences are rendered almost generic. "Yakuza", the premise of the title, is not explored, only mentioned, and so the title is utterly deceptive. The book seems to be meant for the local Japanese audience and is grossly uninformative and unrevealing to anyone else.The only positives are the cover of the book and the poetic, highly suggestive title.
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