Yoshio Kitas hopelessness and lack of faith in his future crystallizes into a decision to commit suicide by what he calls capital punishment at free will, meaning his only pressing problem now is how to spend both his remaining self-allocated seven days on earth and all his worldly money. From fine dining with a former porn actress to insuring his life, from pursuing an ex-girlfriend to an entanglement with an assassin, Yoshios last seven days on earth take on unexpected twists and turns in this darkly comic exploration of the cult of suicide in Japan and the culture that has created it. "Death by Choice," or perhaps more literally "Self-Death Penalty" concerns seven days of a thirty-five-year-old young man who has committed to killing himself, and all the intensification of sensory detail, choice-making, and wrapping up of personal history that ensues. beginning with an porn-star and her pale-faced junior friend and eventually involving Yoshio Kita's past love, an idol past her peak, a hitman, and various other death-profiteers, DBC presents a tautly written, madcap, Japan-centric story that reflects on the nature of contemporary Japanese society and reveals a cynical, knowing stance on life. written by a member of the same artistic circle as Ryu Murakami, author of Audition, DBC is perhaps most closest to that book in feel, if different in topic matter. if you are a huge Ryu Murakami fan, you might very well consider this book as equal to the third or fourth best book in the RM ouevre, and its sort of decadent, media-knowing perspective will be familiar to that end of Japan fanatics. if Shimada had the opportunity to go pure-play surreal and/or 'post-modern,' he provides instead a knowing overview of the entertainment industry and the causes and motivations of many anomie-filled, worldweary Tokyo-ites. fantastically tight prose, striking incident, and a rogue's gallery of human failings. Source: www.amazon.com Yoshio Kita's hopelessness and lack of faith in his future as an ordinary and lonely company worker crystallizes into a decision to take his own life, in what he calls 'execution by Death by Choice'. His only remaining problem is how to spend both his remaining self-allocated seven days on earth and all his worldly money, in this darkly comic exploration of the cult of suicide in Japan, a country with one of the world's highest rates of suicide. From fine dining with a former porn actress to insuring his life, from pursuing his ex-girlfriend to an entanglement with an assassin, Yoshio's last seven days on earth take on unexpected twists and turns as Shimada asks his readers what it means to have the freedom to end your own life, and what becomes truly important when your days are numbered - even if it is by free choice. Sensitively translated by Meredith McKinney, this tale of a very modern Japan is now for the first time available to English readers. Masahiko Shimada ; Translated By Meredith Mckinney. Original Title: Jiyu Shikei.
