Whore Banquets
a year spent working overseas is not always as it is set up to be and Daniel Thayne , a young Englishman teaching in a language school in the suburbs of Tokyo soon finds that life in Japan isn't all polite smiles and reverent bows. First his girlfriend Keiko, a friendly soul was a penchant for Mickey Mouse, says she is pregnant and then Mrs Chiba, Daniel's boss, refuses to pay him a salary. Suddenly the lure of the Orient is not so enticing as the days take on and nightmarish quality and friends from an over-zealous American neighbour to a costly Australian traveller seem a hindrance rather than a help. But it is when Keiko's brothers move in with threats of marriage that Daniel realises he is being enveloped by an unpleasantly claustrophobic family circle. This sinister and witty novel launches an entertaining and original writer