From the Nobel Prize-winning author:
"One of the great short novels of the 20th century" (
The Wall Street Journal).
Internationally acclaimed as one of the world's most influential writers, Kenzaburo Oe brings to the fore the post-WWII rage and anxiety of a decorous society in this "deathly black comedy... dripping with nuclear terror" (
The Japan Times).
Bird is an antisocial twenty-seven-year-old intellectual hanging on to a failing marriage with whiskey. He dreams of going to Africa where the sky sprawls with possibilities. Then, as though walloped by a massive invisible fist, Bird's Utopian fantasies are shattered when his wife gives birth to what he calls their "monster baby." Now, Bird is left with one question: How can he and his wife spend the rest of their lives with this damaged thing clinging to their backs?
As shameful, disgraceful, and unthinkable a desire as it is, Bird has an answer. Not sealed. Not just yet. Not before Bird flees on a bender of indiscriminate (and frustratingly impotent) sex, hard liquor, self-delusion, and most terrifying of all-self-discovery.
"Very close to a perfect contemporary novel." -
The New York Times
"An astonishing novel." -
Mother Jones
