My editor, Fran Lebowitz, got the manuscript of Neyuki back to me a few weeks ago. It was a long time coming, but she gave me great feedback, including her overarching reaction: “I really loved the book.” I can satisfy most of her comments with simple revisions, but there are a couple of things that are more challenging to fix.
Fran would like to see the characters before the catastrophe that makes their lives spiral out of control. I had originally started with the momentous event, thinking that would be an effective hook. Based on her comment, I’m trying to write a whole new opening chapter. I am woefully dissatisfied, though, with the new beginning. Bucolic life in rural Japan does not capture the imagination and refuse to let go. It doesn’t turn pages. So day after day I peck away at ideas that may show the protagonist’s pleasant life in a way that can also hint at the coming conflict and keep readers going.
The longer term challenge for the novel is that it deals with sexual deviance and violence. Those are not the story’s principal themes, and the book condemns the characters who do those things, but they are integral to the plot. I know I risk triggering terrible thoughts, emotions, and memories for some, particularly survivors of sexual abuse. Some will say we should avoid such topics, that whatever worth the writing may have, it’s not important enough to overcome its degrading nature. Some worry about copycats. Those fears are not lost on me. But I know such deviance exists, I feel it’s good to denounce it, and I think Neyuki is a story worth telling. Yet I suspect no North American publisher will touch it. I could try to find a publisher in another country (the UK, for example), or I could publish it myself. Over time, though, the topic may become even less tolerable and the novel might forever stain me in some readers’ eyes. Even so, I’d like to find readers who will be moved by the story.
Whatever I decide, I hope to have a revised version of the novel completed this summer. It would be wonderful to publish it before the winter snows hit Japan.