10 Years of Blood, Sweat, and More Blood
By Damon Shulenberger
Arisugawa Park has been a kind of talisman for me these past 10 years. The novel took form in the ashes of the poetry cycle East to West, as I was preparing to leave a country I had come to admire, loathe, love, and fear.
The book came from a vision of Roppongi and of the traditional (though chopped-up) tatami house in which I lived—polar opposites cohabiting the center of Tokyo. Arisugawa Park originally carried the title The Bomb—strictly a working title, until a better one came along (I actually thought there would be a terrorist bomb somewhere in the book—9/11 was still fresh in mind and this was the height of Bush’s Iraq barnstorming days).
As originally conceived, Arisugawa Park is a dark vision of Tokyo, influenced by noire and Japanese cinema. I have since come to see this book as much more than that this original vision—part gumshoe narrative and part human comedy, equal parts Steinbeck and LeCarre. Stylistic dashes of Faulkner, Kerouac, and Hemingway. Dick Francis, red wine, Graham Greene? Not absent. Mark Twain? Lies underneath. Haruki Murakami? A faint whisper perceived on subway tracks. For all these ingredients (and for lack of a better word) this book may be comfortably called a mystery-thriller. Arguably, it is more in the “literary suspense” vein (thanks Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference for muddying the waters) than in the potboiler tradition.
Arisugawa Park also reflects three years of focused graduate studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and internships at the International Trade Commission in DC, and with the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia in Niigata. If I had found a niche after graduate school, it might never have come about—I dreamt of a trade-focused research job, but the time was not rife with opportunities in that area and I had little interest in the rather wankish & highly sought-out data analysis and econometrics arena. By 2010 I was deeply in debt and a month’s rent away from being on the street (some things never change). So I put a hard nose to the highway and (to be continued..)
From Northern California, Damon Shulenberger is an author currently engaged in projects such as the mystery-thriller Arisugawa Park and a series on admired musicians such as Jimi Hendrix. He also writes on burning topics such as donut pies. His nonfiction work is A One Drop Companion: Inside Poker’s $1 Million Tournament and the Players Who Risk It All.
