Big thanks to Verso and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Izumi Suzuki’s first translated novel Set my Heart on Fire. I was so excited to learn that some of Suzuki’s books had been translated into English a few years back, and I was able to read Terminal Boredom a few years ago, and I really loved her inventive style and metaphoric use of sci-fi to explore gender inequality and sexism in 1970s Japan. I actually learned about Suzuki through her husband’s music career as an experimental Jazz saxophonist. Kaoru Abe was a kind of wild avant garde jazz saxophonist who played occasionally with guitarist Masayuki Takayangi, who I absolutely love. Abe died of a drug overdose in the 1970s, leaving Suzuki a widow who had to care for the couple’s young child. Suzuki did modeling (especially for Nabuyoshi Araki) and wrote her science fiction stories to support herself and her daughter. Although there was not much available on either Suzuki or Abe’s life and marriage in English, this translation seems to provide some insight into Izumi Suzuki’s life and marriage. Although listed as a novel, the book chronicles a young woman’s (also named Izumi) experiences in the Japanese music scene of the 1970s. Suzuki presents Izumi as both beautiful and distant, someone who both seeks pleasure and wants to become somewhat numb and anesthetized. Izumi (the character) only seeks out musicians since she claims they have more passion than anyone else, and the book’s timeline coincides with the start of the heavy psych period of Japan’s rock music (also chronicled by Julian Cope in his excellent book JapRock Sampler). The book is narrated by Izumi, at times alternating between her conversations with friends and lovers and her inner monologue. During one monologue, Izumi explains how she was trying to quit pills, and that she didn’t like alcohol, but she craved the kind of blank state and cool detachment that the pills bring on. As she explains “I preferred drugs because they were chemical. I wanted their world of artificial, phoney intoxication.” Other descriptions about her interactions with others and the music scene often use music metaphors, making comparisons to guitar sounds and the use of reverb and echo pedals. “As if an echo-chamber effect pedal had been plugged into time. Like the one The Happenings Four use in their ‘Alligator Boogaloo’ cover: Boogaloo-loo-loo-loo… It leaves a trembling, trailing tail and sound comes back, bit by bit. The reverb of this night in this time within this portioned space continues endlessly.” I loved this aspect of her writing, as it was apt to the scene she was documenting, yet also novel and unique. I can see how some of these events might have been amplified or heightened to make them seem clearer, more distorted, or even somewhat repetitive, especially as the nights, the bands, and the people all seem to have nothing really to offer Izumi except a brief feeling of pleasure.
Izumi’s pursuit of pleasure with musicians eventually leads her to meeting Jun, a clear stand in for Abe. Izumi’s relationship with Jun is hard to understand, and it wasn’t clear why they even got married in the first place. Izumi just seemed to agree to the marriage after only being with Jun for a short time. As Izumi described him, Jun seems completely dependent on Izumi, even having her shave him, feed him, and take care of him while he plays gigs, seeks to find new heights on his instrument, and engages in further self-destructive behavior, including drug and physical abuse. I didn’t know much about Suzuki’s own relationship with Abe, especially since he died in the late 70s, but from doing a little research, it sounded like it was not a good relationship. While Abe is recognized as an important Jazz artist who tried to play faster and louder than everyone, it also seemed like this kind of aesthetic approach to music was also his approach to life in general. I wondered if Suzuki’s candid writing in this section of the book, detailing the physical abuse and cheating that Izumi endured, was a way of not only documenting her experiences with Abe, but also trying to reclaim her own artistry from the man. Set My Heart on Fire seems to emphasize that women took a back seat to the male musicians and artists of the day, and yet Izumi (the character) has her own thoughts, emotions, and even aesthetic, that many of the other characters, especially the male characters, recognize. Although she’s not always given opportunities to grow as an artist, it’s her unique style and dress that set her apart from others. Sadly though, Izumi’s relationship with Jun takes a physical toll on her, and she becomes increasingly thin and worn out by Jun’s destructive and baby like ways. While I’m not sure this is complete auto-fiction, Suzuki’s life has a lot of parallels with Izumi the character’s.
Jun eventually dies, leaving Izumi to care for their daughter. The last few chapters detail her life after Jun’s death, and her attempts to reconnect with Joel, a band member she slept with when they were younger. “He embodied my youth. He was the symbol of a vanished time. I couldn’t let it go. The more terrifying life became, the stronger he shone within me.” It was really interesting to see Izumi in these last chapters, trying to establish herself, but also not completely letting go of the past. Joel, like a lot of the other men in the book, is pretty shallow, and only asks Izumi to come over because of their past. “Attachment to the idea that my life could’ve been different. Meeting him again only stirred up that regret. Turns out he hadn’t rejected me at all. But something else struck me, seeing how he lives now. We shouldn’t grieve over what regret can’t change.” I really liked this line at the end. It’s not necessarily a happy ending, and I wouldn’t have expected that from this book. But it does seem like Izumi walks away from her experiences and life with some insight and ideas. The book showed how challenging it was for women in Japan to become involved in these music and arts scenes, and how they often had to take a secondary place besides the men. Yet, Izumi’s own narration, thoughts, and experiences challenge this, and present a kind of struggle or fight to establish herself. Set My Heart On Fire wasn’t as exciting and innovative as Terminal Boredom’s stories, but it provided me with some more insight about the Japanese music scene of the 1970s, and Suzuki’s own life. I also really appreciated the translation. There were the descriptions of drugs and music, but also Suzuki frequently mentioned how “thick” the nights were, and I thought this was a really great word choice. I’m not sure if the translation always relied on the same word in Japanese, but it seemed to be fitting for the scene. I hope that more of Suzuki’s books are translated to English in the ensuing years.

It sounds a bit tired to say but most of Set My Heart On Fire is totally preoccupied with sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. It could be fun but it gets pretty old pretty quick and so does its main character. Izumi mostly spends her time seeing a few different musicians and we spend our time watching her in transit to them or waiting for them to arrive. I enjoyed the conversations between Izumi and her frenemy Etsuko, especially when they were talking about music but the main focus of the whole book was men and well, I’m not really intrigued by that. The way Izumi’s nihilistic living takes its toll on her doesn’t feel either redemptive or punitive. It just feels like a natural progression of everything else that she allows to happen around her. Set My Heart On Fire does feel groundbreaking for the era that it was originally written in (1970s Japan) but other than that there’s not much else there. Even its sexuality and eroticism feel staid since for the most part Izumi is subjugating herself to men’s needs and doesn’t seem to be getting any pleasure or satisfaction out of it. Set My Heart On Fire concludes with a prematurely aged Izumi yearning for a do over. I wish that for her too.

Another very absorbing look at adolescent discontent, in a convincing Japanese setting. The other two books by the author available in English are slightly more refined in theme and execution, but this novel was very convincing. A disenchanted narrator who seeks to find love, but in all the wrong ways,

A great, sleazy Japanese novel in the tradition of Ryu Murakami and Shuichi Yoshida. I would love to read all of her books. I read and loved her two previous short story collections. So far, her most interesting book in English is Terminal Boredom. She broke from traditional Japanese realism here, depicting a gritty auto-fiction which makes typical I-novels of the time feel tame and polite.

The perspective is very close, and the style is very casual. It is highly readable and eschews elegant descriptions or elaborate interior monologues. We hear the protagonist's thoughts. She could be a stand-in for the author and bears her name. Plenty of drugs are consumed. The atmosphere is sultry. She is no longer as young as she wants to be. The older she gets, the more depressed she becomes, the more embroiled in her twisted passions. She feels nothing most of the time. There is a hint of the ennui and the disgust present in such splendor in the novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Though this is not quite as brutal, there is an abundance of hideous violence and gross behavior. It is the polar opposite of what your parents are reading now.

I definitely appreciate the boldness of the author's artistic integrity. The references to obscure Japanese music groups were sometimes difficult to follow, suffering from localization. The translation is wonderful. All 3 books by this author presently in English offer something different. None of them are predictable rehashes of genre tropes. Each one is a unique scream into readers' echo chambers. Meaning to shake our sensibilities she holds nothing back, and the product is a breathless read with memorable, execrable characters acting abominably in the way you will often find Bret Easton Ellis and his ilk casting their characters into self-manufactured hells of greasy uneasiness. Emerge bleary-eyed from this novel and salivate over the prospect of future translations.

'You don't lie to friends, right? But you need to deceive each other if you're going to be lovers.'

The debut novel from Izumi Suzuki, coming to us after the release of two short-story collections. Here is less of the cyber-punk, sci-fi feel and much more an autobiographical vibe, as our narrator 'Izumi' recounts her experiences in the bars and clubs of 1970s Tokyo. Unashamedly upfront about sexuality, love and relationships, this is a world of music, drugs and mistakes. And always, always, there is that thought in your mind as you read it of the desperate, tormented life of the author. Similar to Mishima and Dazai, for example, I find it almost impossible to distinguish between the narrative voice and the author behind it, so strong are their own life stories.

For me, this lacked some of the power and intensity of the short story collections, but make no mistake, Suzuki was an astonishing writer and lived her life on the edge, and this is a powerful and compelling piece of work.

Somewhere between 4 and 4.5 stars.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

i enjoyed the way the book was written but not the actual story... i thought the pacing was off and it all felt kinda boring and lowkey uncomfortable to read

Nothing exceeds like excess.

And this one definitely exceeded my tolerance for excess.

Izumi Suzuki writes well and she makes some interesting observations about relationships, but this is largely a fictionalized memoir about sex and drug abuse, and there’s just so much of it there and so little plot that it gets old fast.

I generally have a pretty high tolerance for this kind of content as long as it isn’t grotesque, but it needs to at least feed movement in the narrative or spur character evolution, and this book is extraordinarily stagnant on both counts.

It leaves the reader without much to root for, frustrated by the protagonist’s repetitive bad choices that lead to the same cycle of self-destruction over and over without her ever appearing to grow or change. I’m not necessarily of the opinion that a character or the reader always has to learn something or change for the better, but I need a better story than this to let go of any idea need for growth, and I definitely need more self-awareness on the part of the character. To that end, there’s a martyred self indulgence to this that is hard to look away from, but even harder to enjoy.

This seems to be an autobiographical novel from Izumi Suzuki, the author of short story collections also published in translation by Verso, before which she was very little known in the English-speaking world. I say "autobiographical" because the details of the story hew very close to the author's own biography. This makes some parts of the book quite poignant. Unfortunately it is also choppy and uneven in tone. I have enjoyed Suzuki's short stories in the past and would read more of her sci-fi work but this novel was not for me, even though I can see the value in its being published.

I enjoyed following young Izumi around through her adventures and relationships. She often finds herself in peculiar situations and definitely is a chaos agent. It was an entertaining read that kept me wanting to see how Izumi would pull herself through these strange situations and relationships, but I was ultimately unsatisfied and a bit uncomfortable with how she would handle people’s feelings. This is all probably part of her charm, being a chaotic uncontrollable woman, but that character type isn’t for me sometimes.

I thought this book was very good, if uncomfortable at times. It felt like watching a car crash where you can’t really look away and don’t necessarily like what you are seeing. You should definitely give it a read but look up trigger warnings! Thank you to Netgalley for providing an eARC.

Set in Tokyo's underground scene in the 70s, Set My Heart On Fire offers an edgy backdrop brimming with rebellion and complex relationships; this is exactly what got me interested in picking up this book however the novel ultimately fell flat for me. I found the narrator quite boring and thought the pace of the book was sluggish which coupled up made it difficult for me to engage with Izumi. Though this wasn't for me, I did enjoy the style of writing and will definitely be picking up the author's short story collections in the near future.

Thank you Verso and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC!

2.5

I'm sorry but I found this book quite boring. It tells the story of Izumi who spends her time having sex with members of bands who she doesn't ever seem to particularly like. They whistle (or ring) and she goes to them - sometimes they have sex and sometimes they seem to get bored of the idea before they begin and so Izumi goes home.

She doesn't seem to mind if the young men are addicts or mentally ill or married or into her even.

This would be okay for one or even two short stories but an entire book of them becomes tedious.

Sadly there's very little else to the book. It didn't even feel that erotic to me.

The writing is good and that's the only positive I took from this book.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Verso Books for the advance review copy.

I struggled with this book. I liked the idea of vignettes to tell stories, and I loved the musical details throughout the book. I just really did not love the way the characters described other women, and men. Disparagingly. Being set in the 70s, , with the drug use and grunge, it fits the time period. Izumi’s relationship with Jun was heartbreaking, how he treated her and made her feel. It was hard to read.

I loved this book and was enthralled with the writing. I loved the character study. Would read more from the author!

I’ve found Izumi Suzuki’s short stories uneven but always compelling, so this - her debut novel, translated into English more than 40 years after its original publication - was a bit of a disappointment to me. It has recognizable tropes from her short fiction - music, unlikeable women, a persistent sense of nihilism - but it lacks the speculative elements that I’ve enjoyed in many of her stories. It’s very dialogue heavy, which is not usually my favourite, and the heterosexual dysfunction does get to be a bit much. I enjoyed the ambivalent narrator, her odd psychological profile, and the irreverent tone of the novel. But not a stellar read for me.

i’ve been intrigued by izumi suzuki’s work for a little while, but i held off on reading her until now because i’m not a huge short story person. so i was excited to see that her debut novel was finally translated into english! i found this book to be fine - the writing was sharp, it was a quick read, and i found the later parts of the story to be pretty compelling.

set my heart on fire follows izumi, a girl in her 20s drifting through the japanese music scene in the 1970s. she goes through life in a drug-induced daze, hopping from lover to lover and eventually marrying a musician. the beginning of the book fell flat for me - it was repetitive and i had a difficult time keeping track of all of the musicians izumi was involved with. however, once she gets married, the story takes a more troubling turn, and that was when i found myself getting more invested. the darkness between izumi and her husband was reminiscent of the relationship at the center of vigdis hjorth’s if only, but the brevity of set my heart on fire kept it from feeling too bloated.

the writing style was straightforward and sharp, which i always appreciate. this was a quick read that i was able to finish in one day. i think it might be better read over a few days due to the subject matter. i’m not sure if i’ll read suzuki’s short stories after reading this, but i’m glad to have given her a try.

Set My Heart on Fire by Izumi Suzuki is a captivating dive into the complex emotions and surreal scenarios that have become her signature. With a delicate blend of dark humor and poignant introspection, Suzuki crafts a narrative that is as thought-provoking as it is deeply affecting. Her ability to explore human vulnerability in strange, futuristic settings is unmatched, and this work is no exception. Suzuki’s writing feels both intimate and otherworldly, making Set My Heart on Fire an unforgettable exploration of love, loneliness, and the human condition.

Thank you to Netgalley and Verso for giving me access to an ARC!

I really liked the premise of this novel- following a young woman in 70s Japan exploring the rock scene? Count me in! A lot of the writing fell flat as it felt the novel had no discernible direction . I love novels with no clear plot and filled with introspection but the narrator felt half-baked.

On the plus side, the translation itself was seamless! It read well and I think it was due to that, I as a reader was really able to explore my gripes with this book!

All the trigger warnings.

This was borderline horrendous, and yet I get the sense that this was exactly the feeling the author was trying to express. We have a group of friends-slash-groupies living the rocker lifestyle in the 70s and beyond. Everyone sleeps with everyone else (heterosexually, of course). Everyone cheats and abuses and self-harms and drugs it up. I couldn't grasp the point. Nearly everything was a put-off ... except when the music was described. The whole scene, livid.

The vapid and disturbing sentiments expressed by the characters ... by the end of the book, I still couldn't figure out if it was author commentary, a misguided attempt at representing the times, or unintentional schlock. The utter racism about the "mixed" guy whose skin "changes colour." The utter racism about Chinese men being "filthy b*****ds in bed." The utterly racist sentiments expressed in "I find a girl has to be at least half Japanese for me to get there" and "I slept with this foreign eighteen-year-old the other day ... she smelled bad, had pretty intense BO. I couldn't get in the mood at all." And also "I followed her like I was r*****ed," says Izumi. Ticking off pretty much every prejudice you can imagine. I almost, almost laughed at the comment about the Beatles being "so short" until the author threw in "Were the Beatles a dwarf band?" I mean, it was crass in every way.

But it gets worse. All the cheating and backstabbing aside, there's an "eating disorder for love" plot line and a rape framed as romantic rejection. Actually, all of the sex scenes were written like voyeur fanfiction featuring livestock. And then the big reveal: Izumi's first husband cut off her pinkie toe, an expression of "true love"! Somehow! Nothing makes sense and everything is toxic.

Anyone who's lived in Japan a while has probably noticed a curious pattern when overhearing everyday conversations: the gender pattern. Here we have a hundred cases in point. Again, I can't decide if the author is raising the issue or merely replicating it. Have a go:

"'Very manly thing to say. Men are such realists.'"
"Most men do exactly that. Fall for someone because that person's been kind to them."
"I decided. Women are all talk."

What do you think? If you feel this is accurate, then I'm sorry to break it to you, but I gender-swapped the subjects here. Hopefully the one good thing we can get out of this mess is an opportunity to recognize our own unconscious biases.

Izumi Suzuki’s Set My Heart on Fire is a visceral exploration of youth, love, and disillusionment set against the backdrop of 1970s Tokyo’s underground music scene. Through thirteen poignant vignettes, Suzuki narrates the turbulent twenties of a young woman named Izumi, who navigates the chaotic world of jazz clubs, fleeting relationships, and self-destructive habits. Each chapter, cleverly titled after iconic tracks by bands like The Zombies, The Supremes, and underground Japanese artists, infuses the narrative with the spirit of the era.

The novel’s raw, candid tone resonates with the fraught tenderness of Marguerite Duras’ The Lover and the decadent dissolution found in Ryu Murakami’s Almost Transparent Blue. Yet, Suzuki’s voice remains distinctly her own—sharp, witty, and deeply introspective. Izumi’s journey is one of self-exploration, marred by addiction, mental health struggles, and the elusive search for love and fulfillment. The novel’s pacing mirrors the protagonist’s erratic life, moving between whimsical moments of youth and the darker, more reflective periods as she grows older.

Set My Heart on Fire is not a comfortable read; it’s a brutally honest portrayal of a woman grappling with her identity in a world that often seeks to define her. Suzuki’s depiction of the underground music scene, with its blend of glamour and grime, provides a vivid backdrop to Izumi’s inner turmoil. This novel is a powerful, unsettling, and ultimately unforgettable glimpse into a life lived on the edge of society, making it a must-read for those who appreciate raw, introspective literature.

Set My Heart on Fire by Izumi Suzuki is a visceral dive into the underground music and club scene of 1970s Tokyo. It follows the turbulent experiences of its protagonist, also named Izumi, as she navigates passion, complex relationships, and the intensity of the psychedelic rock scene. Suzuki’s raw and candid writing style makes the narrative both intimate and disorienting, reflecting the chaotic nature of the lifestyle she portrays. With an emphasis on desire, regret, and self-discovery, the novel taps into the punk and countercultural energy of its time. It's a short but powerful read, complemented by an evocative soundtrack that spans Japanese underground bands and Western rock influences. This novel is a captivating exploration of transgression and self-reflection, perfect for fans of Suzuki’s distinct, misanthropic, and hauntingly beautiful voice.