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‎Writers Read Their Early Sh*tの番組、エピソードS2/E11 - US National Beat Poet Laureate Ron Whitehead is not bowing down-2023年3月30日

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Jason welcomes under-qualified window-washer Dave Olson & his fantastic beard & beautiful hands for a natter about punching or huggi

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https://www.holeintheheadreview.com/post/jason-emde

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Book Review: My Hand's Tired & My Heart Aches

My Hand's Tired & My Heart Aches is a poetically-spoken novel-in-letters, based on actual events and mail, written by and from the point of view of Jason Emde during his time in Japan (between 1995 and 2005) and published by Kalamalka Press. Jason, a young world traveler and beat hipster from Canada comes to Japan to teach and rediscover himself. His life is a ride, full of drugs, alcohol abuse, and a surprising amount of menage-a-trois, in addition to catching the sights and appreciating the beauty of tiny Japanese children studying English. Remember, he's a teacher. Not a pedophile. Throughout his adventures and his new path of self-discovery, Jason keeps in touch with his old crew via letters and occasional visits back to the great white north, clinging on to the moments in the past that made him as he discovers he's only just composed of those moments after all.

Where the hell did I find this book.Talk about small-press-publishing, this book hardly even pops up on a Google search. Although I can't for sure recollect, I believe it was given to me during the last Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Chicago a couple of years ago. Some sly, young table of independent publishers probably gave it to me, although for all I remember, they may have slipped it into my shoulder bag while I wasn't looking. Those conferences are such bologna. In any case, I've chosen to end my "Japan from the point-of-view of western writers" (fuck, that's a mouthful) trend in book reviews with this one. In case you missed the others, I also read Hokkaido Highway Blues, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Shogun. And what timing too--all while cutting through these, my Japanese ex-girlfriend (from, like, six years ago) contacted me out of the blue again over Facebook for the first time in three years to tell me she couldn't talk to me anymore because of something related to clinging to the past, even though we weren't talking anyway--like she was dumping me back years later or something. The unfortunate part about that is, even after reading all these books, I'm still not necessarily sure of what the fuck that was about, so it can't be said that I learned a whole hell of a lot. But read the reviews, you might see something you like.

Speaking of reviews, back to My Hand's Tired & My Heart Aches. In the vein of Ginsburg and Kerouac, this novel is rooted deeply in actual events but so poetically told that it becomes daunting. The words are ineffably pretty--Emde knows how to string shit together, but the plot is--well, there isn't one. Characters come and go from letter-to-letter, while those from his earliest past tend to stagger, coming in-and-out of the book in letters, only we don't get much of their personality because, while the letters are addressed to them, Emde doesn't appear to write with a specific audience in mind. He writes to everyone in relatively the same way, be they an ex-lover or an old chum. Everything in the novel is free-form thought transcribed to the page and so, quite randomly, arbitrary thoughts that don't relate to whatever anecdote he's conveying pop up in spasms, like someone telling a story in a bar but becoming distracted when his favorite song comes on the jukebox. He's shenanigans on the page and if it weren't for his poetic prose, nothing would tie this book together--even the anecdotes sit juxtaposed next to each other. One moment, it's all blow jobs and Jason talking about the places his dick has been, and in the next moment, he's talking about how beautiful and clever the little girls he teaches are. Very quickly, these two thoughts seem to merge in the collective mind of the audience as Jason getting dick-crazy over some 10-year-olds and the whole thing feels dirty, without purpose, but only because of haphazard way of story telling..

'Course, maybe you have to know the guy. It isn't as though he doesn't change through the book, though changes are subtle. On about page 100, Jason starts using grammar and punctuation, although he still shares thoughts in fragments, but it is slightly less daunting to push though. Some of the anecdotes are entertaining, but he hardly sits in a moment long enough for it to stick. Even now, having just finished it and put the book down, the only thing I remember is Jason in Mexico (and not Japan?) puking and shitting at the same time as a result of food-poisoning. Even if the book is loosely parodying Kerouac's style, at least Kerouac discovers some kind-of-purpose part-way though On The Road, though Jason gives his audience no reason to finish the letters whatsoever. In essence, this seems like a great book for him to show off to his friends, but I can see why it never took off and got real distribution.

In conclusion, I can't say I loved it, but I didn't hate it entirely. As I noted earlier, the words are pretty and, although it's subtle, there's character evolution here. I'd be excited to see what Emde does in the future, but for now, buddy, my honest assessment on your first novel isn't through the roof.

The Riahi Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars.

About the publisher: Kalamalka Press is a small press out of Vancouver with about twenty titles to their name. That being said, it's very unusual that they don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. I can't imagine they get a lot of agents querying them, considering how small their distribution and their catalog is. In fact, if you Google them, I'd wager this book review blog might be some of the bigger press they've ever received. Although their book looks pretty, this printing of My Hand's Tired & My Heart Aches has two page 132s and no page 133, so they've still got their work cut out for them, even though they've been around nearly 30 years. Must be a Canadian thing.