FictionThere can't be too many people who have ever wondered what would happen if you transplanted Philip Marlowe to south Japan, but for those who have, Escape From Amsterdam is probably as close as they're going to get.
The hero is Aozora Fujiwara, a young debt-ridden student who's more Jeff Lebowski than Sam Spade, truth be told. Instead of studying to become the corrupt planning official he plans to be, he spends his time running up big debts playing mah-jong. When his aunt dies, Aozara returns to visit his father in his backward home town of Inaka, thereby getting some breathing space from the small-time Kyoto hoodlums who are looking for their money.
His aunt's death offers an unexpected glimmer of hope, when she bequeaths some pieces of priceless Japanese art to Aozora and his sister, Mai. And here's the catch: to claim their inheritance, Aozora needs Mai's consent, but Mai has disappeared. Cue some hazardous escapades as Aozora searches for his sister, and discovers she has become a prostitute indentured to the yakuza in a Dutch-themed tourist trap theme park called Amsterdam.
Sherwood, a Canadian novelist who has lived in Japan but is now based in England, is a graduate of the vaunted East Anglia creative writing course, and this appears to be an attempt to write a pastiche hardboiled thriller come state-of-the-nation novel - he has stated that he wants to reveal the "tragedy that is modern-day Japan". Escape From Amsterdam is energetically, elegantly written and it succeeds as breathless adventure - but it is rather less accomplished as a commentary on modern Japan.
In transplanting the conventions of the private detective thriller to Japan, Sherwood has necessarily adopted the tropes that go with them: the femme fatale, the brutal gangsters, the venal cops, the endemic corruption. Roman Polanski's Chinatown, for instance, might have demonstrated that there was something rotten in the state of California, but in imitating it, Sherwood has at best revealed the universality of corruption and criminality, without really saying anything specific about Japan's westernisation and cultural degeneration.
The art that Aozora and Mai inherit obviously represents the priceless cultural heritage of Japan, and Aozora's willingness to sell it to bidders from Dubai is a gross betrayal of that heritage. In effect, though, it functions as no more than a plot device, a McGuffin that holds the power to save Aozora from his irate creditors. The ersatz Amsterdam of the theme park, with its strictly controlled canals and reproduction gables, is meant to be the manifestation of Japan's attempted westernisation, but as Sherwood realises it, it is no more than a gaudy background for the hectic plot. Finally, Aozora's plan to erect a Japanese-themed theme park serves as the apotheosis of cultural bastardisation. But we've had Bunratty folk park for years, and it would be a hardened cynic indeed who insisted that it represented the "tragedy of modern-day Ireland". Synthetic cultural appropriation is not restricted to Japan, after all.
Ultimately, it is impossible to forget that this is a westerner's critique of Japan's westernisation written for a western audience, and that extends to the pop-cultural references, from Clint Eastwood's Escape from Alcatraz to Bruce Willis or Yoda or even sprinter Ben Johnson. In addition, the occasional pages of manga cartoons illustrating the plot come across as gimmicky, contrived efforts at enhancing the Japanese-ness of the book. On this evidence, Sherwood is an immensely readable talent who will hopefully flourish once he manages to escape from Japan.
Davin O'Dwyer is a freelance journalist
Escape from Amsterdam By Barrie Sherwood Granta, £9.99. 258pp