Cassette Guys Tokyo Woes

By Paul Gray

You might think that a guy who hadn't published a novel in eleven years would show a few signs of nervousness, make a false move here and there, when he gave it another try. But Bruce Jay Friedman, who was almost certainly, pound for pound, the peppiest black humorist of the whole 1960s (Remember Stern ? A Mother's Kisses ?), hasn't exactly been idle during his long layoff. He wrote The Lonely Guy's Book of Life, which not only advised single fellas how to cope but became a motion picture vehicle for Steve Martin. He did the screenplay for Stir Crazy and pitched in on the scenarios of Doctor Detroit and Splash. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that Bruce hasn't lost a step in the dialogue department. And the way he spins yarns is enough to make even nonreaders feel right at home. In fact, if the truth be told, after a couple of pages of "guys" and "fellas," and cliches strung together so you know he's kind of kidding them, but not in a serious way, most readers may even start thinking and talking like Bruce.

So here's the deal on Tokyo Woes. A "big strapping fellow" named Mike Halsey suddenly gets it into his head to go to Japan. Why? That's just Mike for you. On the flight over he meets a returning native, "William (call me Bill) Atenabe," who has managed to blow $100,000 betting on U.S. high school basketball games. Before they land, Bill has invited Mike to stay with the Atenabes, whose home sprawls over one-eighth of an acre in Tokyo. Mike is not one for making snap judgments, but the Atenabe clan is certainly unusual. Take Poppa Kobe, for example. He is being forced into retirement by a giant conglomerate, but not before an attractive female deprogrammer has been sent to squeeze everything he learned on the job out of his head. Then he can open a noodle shop, like all the other Japanese oldsters.

In fact, Mike picks up a lot of friction under the surface of this peculiar foreign place, and wonders, "Had he come to a nation of moody guys?" At the plant where he works, Bill shows Mike some graffiti that assembly-line workers have scrawled in the lavatory: "Our section leader has several flaws." Bill also lets on that Japan has been building a huge offensive army in secret all these years, and advises, "Don't mess with us, Mike. We're not just a bunch of little cassette guys."

By the time Mike gets safely back to the good old U.S. of A., a few soreheads may complain that Bruce hasn't really got the hang of Japan and that what we have here is sort of a dumb parody of a caricature. Or you might hear that the language is not actually ironic and incisive and all the rest, but more like a transcript of lonely guy bar talk, right there at the pitch it reaches when happy hours are ending. Don't listen to the gloom and doom. But if you do and decide not to give Tokyo Woes a good shot, you can always wait and catch the video on MTV.