December 10, 2007
In her cunning follow-up to Southland
, Revoyr returns to L.A., this time to when Sunset Boulevard was “just a dirt road” and Jun Nakayama was a famous silent film star. Prompted by a journalist’s visit in 1964, 42 years after he left the screen for good, Jun revisits his youth in Japan, his discovery at L.A.’s Little Tokyo Theater, his rise to stardom and the scandalous events that led to his abrupt retreat from public life. Mixing real people with fictional characters like principled Japanese actress Hanako Minatoya, troubled starlet Elizabeth Banks (not the one in Seabiscuit
), ingénue Nora Minton Niles and dashing director Ashley Bennett Tyler, Revoyr creates a vibrant portrait of a time when the film studio was “a place of serious work.” As Jun reveals the secrets he has kept for decades, he uncovers new twists in his own history and comes to terms with other painful experiences he has repressed, namely his loneliness and the effects of the anti-Japanese racism he mistakenly believed he could overcome by being “as agreeable—and American—as possible.” The occasional awkward transition between present and past notwithstanding, Revoyr beautifully invokes Jun’s self-deceptions and his growing self-awareness. It’s an enormously satisfying novel.
January 15, 2008
Tokyo-born Revoyr's third novel (after the award-winning "Southland") tells a deceptively simple story about the first days of Hollywood. Through the unfolding recollections of Jun Nakayama, a Japanese immigrantturnedA-list actor, it zooms in on the sexism and anti-Asian bigotry of the early 20th century. It is 1964, and a zealous reporter tracks down the now-retired 73-year-old Nakayama for an article he's writing. At first, Nakayama is reluctant to be interviewed, but he ultimately can't resist the spotlight. Still, considering that his acting career ended in 1922, he finds the journalist's interest baffling. As they talk, the writer's queries send Nakayama on a quest that uncovers long-buried secrets. The unsolved murder of his favorite director, coupled with sexual peccadilloes, police payoffs, and massive cover-ups, are woven into a tale showcasing human foibles and heroism. In the end, Nakayama discovers what it means to take personal responsibility and stand up for what's right. Fast-moving, riveting, unpredictable, and profound; highly recommended for all fiction collections.Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn
Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from April 1, 2008
Few subjects generate clich's more readily than Hollywood, yetRevoyr has steered clear of every stereotype while perfectly capturing the promise of classic movie-star dreams. As in heraward-winningSouthland (2003), Revoyr works in two time frames to illuminate the dilemmas confronting people of Japanese descent in L.A. In thisvirtuoso first-person narration, the fruit of Chandler and Fitzgerald, Jun Nakayama, a box-office sensation during the silent-film era and now a recluse, is contacted in 1964 by an eager young journalist. A man so cut off from the present day he still drives a Packard and wears clothes considered elegant decades ago, Jun is initially reluctant to talk about his past but is soon swept away on a tide of vivid memories. Writing with exquisite subtlety and evokingnoirish suspense, Revoyr brings early, still beautifully rural Hollywood back to life in all its brash excitementthrough Juns cautious eyes. As he recallsthe deep joyof acting, his heartbreaking love affairs with pioneering women, the unsolved murder of his director, and the racism that shadowed his every move, Revoyr questions our notion of success and lays bare the thorny paradoxes fame still poses for people of color. Rare indeed is a novel this deeply pleasurable and significant.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)