Dance Dance Dance [B1988]

1995 PB, 1st Vintage edition with the original John Gall cover - with cover wear and oft-read text pages. Dance Dance Dance-a follow-up to A Wild Sheep Chase-is a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride through Murakami's Japan, a place where everything that is not up for sale is up for grabs. As Murakami's nameless protagonist searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, he is plunged into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread. In this propulsive novel, featuring a shabby but oracular Sheep Man, one of the most idiosyncratically brilliant writers at work today fuses together science fiction, the hardboiled thriller, and white-hot satire.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Probably one of my favorite books. Highly enjoyed how layered it is from the writing to the mystery to even the unrequited love. Also found the narrator to be witty and entertaining. The way the story ties all the lose ends and clarifies the confusing beginning was also satisfying to me. Recommend."; "What can I say? You've caught me at a particularly Japanese time in my life. Man, what a read. A perfect blend of noir with Murakami's inimitable hyper-surrealism and, as always, a fascinating character study at the center of it all."; "The best description for any of Murakami's book would be 'It's not about the destination, it's about the journey' ."; "He is such a peculiar writer. Second book by him I've read and felt the same things: weirded out by his descriptions of women but ended up loving it. The ending was beautiful."