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THE EARTHQUAKE BIRD opens in a Tokyo police station, where Lucy Fly, a young woman originally from Yorkshire is under investigation for the murder of her friend, Lily, another Yorkshire lass. Considering her circumstances, Lucy seems remarkably unconcerned, especially as Japan still retains the death penalty in certain cases, as her interrogator is pleased to point out. She is certainly less than frank in her answers to police questions, and this does not stem from a language problem, as Lucy has lived in Japan for ten years and is thoroughly fluent in Japanese. In the course of the night that passes, Lucy tells us what she will not tell the police, revealing slowly the events that led up to Lily's death and, before that, to Lucy's own decision to sever all relations with her family and emigrate to Japan. She reveals more to us than she may understand herself and thus emerges as a complex and intensely interesting character. This is Susanna Jones's first novel, but one would never know it. She handles a difficult form (first person narration by an unreliable narrator) with complete control and conviction. She herself has lived and worked in Japan and by the clever device of presenting two English characters, one familiar with the language and customs of her adopted country, the other hopelessly at sea, she provides a wealth of detail about a land that many Western readers find both intriguing and strange. The cover describes the book as "a novel of mystery," and so it is, but it is a psychological mystery, not a plot-driven puzzle. It reminded me of Ruth Rendell's JUDGEMENT IN STONE as much as any other book, though comparisons with early Minette Walters also spring to mind. It is less that Lucy resembles Rendell's illiterate character than that the the reader's attention, and ultimately her pity, is engaged by a figure who has been deeply unlucky in the tragic sense of that term and who is struggling to comprehend her fate. According to the jacket copy, Jones is at work on a second novel, WATERLILY, due out shortly, and I look forward to reading it. This review refers to the Picador (UK) edition.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, January 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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