Death Of A Salaryman
Fiona Campbell
This is a quirky, engaging tale of a Japanese worker’s midlife crisis and redemption set in modern-day Tokyo.
Yamada Kenji has been a salaryman at a television corporation for 22 years, “longer than he had been married”. When he is unceremoniously fired on his 40th birthday, he has to figure out what to do with his life.
It’s a good thing there’s a ready assortment of colourful characters to guide him along, including Izumi Izo, the enthusiastic and optimistic itinerant salesman, and Doppo, the pachinko pro who shows Kenji the tricks of the trade.
But Kenji also has to deal with a condescending mother- in-law, a distant wife and a two-faced TV producer when he finally gets a chance to turn his idea for a game show into reality.
British author Fiona Campbell takes a risk by setting her debut novel in a foreign land, one which she has lived in for only a few months.
Impressively, she pulls it off with a sharp eye for detail and empathy for her characters. While Kenji’s passiveness can be maddening, you can’t help but root for him as he undergoes travail after travail.
Campbell also balances the offbeat elements well, such that the novel does not veer into surreal territory but teeters deliciously on the edge.
The ending leaves us with a Kenji who has found contentment – but it sits a little oddly with the rest of the novel.
If you like this, read: Nice Work by David Lodge (1990, $26.78 with GST, Books Kinokuniya)Sparks fly when the worlds of Victor Wilcox, a managing director having a midlife crisis, and Robyn Penrose, a fiercely feminist English lecturer, collide. The final chapter and most satisfying of Lodge’s Rummidge trilogy about academic life.
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