Soothing Music for Stray Cats
Soothing Music for Stray Cats by Jayne Joso
ISBN: 9780955527258, £9.99. Published on 1 May 2009
Shortlisted for the People's Book Prize, 09-10
Jayne's English Blog
Mark's best friend Jim just jumped from the twentieth floor, forcing him to reassess the way he's been living his own life. This contemporary rites of passage novel is a calm, cool, and well-controlled fiction debut flooded with warmth and humanity. With the reflection of The Catcher in the Rye and the depth of Kenzaburo Oe's An Echo of Heaven, it captures the moment following disaster where things can swing either way. Music and literature help Mark find his way through as he faces questions about friendship, suicide, intervention, and guilt.
Suicide, Songwriting, and Samurai Philosophy within soft covers.
Look inside: Text Extract Soothing Music for Stray Cats (PDF)
Jayne Joso, having lived and worked in Japan and China, now lives in the UK. She has written extensively on Architecture including writing for the UK's Architecture Today magazine, and is also highly regarded for her writing on Japanese arts & culture. Her first children's book was recently published by Benesse in Japan; & her first play, China's Smile, commissioned in celebration of China's Children's Day, enjoyed a long theatre run and was later televised. This is her first novel.
He'd left no note, not one that anyone had found, but if I thought for long enough, would I be able to imagine what he was feeling? Part of me wanted to know what was going through that head of his, and part of me, I guess the bigger part, was scared of that. Total coward at heart. - But how long had he been fighting it, how long had he wanted to do it? And the final decision, was that taken in that one last moment? And was there... one last moment... a snap of time when things could have been changed?
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