A bit of advice: Don’t screw with the yakuza. Jake Adelstein can tell you why — for reasons all too personal — in his book TOKYO VICE: AN AMERICAN REPORTER ON THE POLICE BEAT IN JAPAN. This bio chronicles his unlikely rise through the ranks of Japanese journalism, despite being a Jewish American with little understanding of the country’s culture.
He gets his baptism by fire. As the account opens, we know his life is essentially being threatened by Japanese mobsters if he proceeds to write a story about a higher-up’s liver transplant. The reasons aren’t known to Adelstein, but they make no difference, because death is pretty final, and the threats extend to his wife and children.
Having gone to college in Japan, Adelstein recalls taking the stringent, four-phase test newspapers use to find new hires from graduating seniors. Even though he partially blows the first segment, he eventually is offered a position with the YOMIURI SHINBUN, a prestigious daily with a readership of 10 million.
The first two-thirds of TOKYO VICE is essentially a tour through the city’s seedy underbelly and the cases he worked, forcing him to act as much as a detective as a reporter — everything from the murder of a snack club owner to a teenager who kills himself via electrocution by following instructions in a bestselling suicide manual.
The most memorable sections delve into the country’s perverse sex clubs. For instance, one popular site contained an actual subway car, in which men pay to be molested by female clientele; another essentially advertises its hook as “fuck someone else’s wife.” Adelstein himself becomes a participant in another club where a hostess fellates you with one hand as she massages your prostate with the other.
TOKYO VICE succeeds on several levels: as gripping journalism, as a ragged crime tale, as culture-shock memoir. Stakes are raised in its third act as the yakuza exercise increasing pressure on Adelstein, but he pursues the story anyway. Obviously, he lived to tell his tale — and thank goodness, because it’s a fascinating one. —Rod Lott
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Interesting! I wrote about this book one week wanting to read it. I’m glad it delivers.