Veterans' Day: A James Buckner Novel Book

I itch. I scratch. I write a review. Gari-Gari.

In the smoke-filled bar, in a dark corner of cyberspace, where people are too interested in noir novels to care about the real world, I tell the man across from me that the book is one part mood, one part madness, one part stylized crime novel.

What does it all mean in the end?

One year after the end of the war, at the height of the US occupation of Japan, everything is still too broken to be meaningful. And yet something called life goes on. Wrapped in a warped, twisted world, there is a fairly standard crime story based on fact. But the devil is in the details. And the details lead to mood. They lead to repetition. They lead to doubt. The narrator is a broken man, so meaning comes in shards of broken glass.

The man seems unimpressed. Yes, he says. But what does it all mean in the end?

I itch. I scratch. Gari-Gari.

Some parts are easily understood. I hand him the pieces of glass.

Other parts don't come so easily. As easily as war-memory battered sleep. As easy as the stains come off the mugs of this smoke -filled bar in the dark corner of cyberspace. As easily as...

Enough, he says. You know what I want.

I itch. I scratch. Gari-Gari. I hand him the pills.

And this will take me to sleep? he asks. This will take me to your book review.

I smile. I bow. I itch. I scratch. Book-review. Book-review.