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Mixed Tongues
One sunny Saturday morning, at the end of my first week in Japan, Ms. Shinako arrived, packaged gift in hand, bowing deeply and smiling as she stepped through the door. She was in her mid-twenties, petite and a little bit mousy, with long black hair coming down to her shoulders, which she kept sweeping behind…
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A Million Little Hits
How did this poor excuse of a pulp fiction spy novel, bereft of the quirky detail, realistic complexity, genuine human interaction, and factual statement that make a true memoir interesting rise to ninth on the NYT bestseller list? The answer lies in his narrative form of analysis of US foreign affairs, and in the nature…