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.

“Set My Heart on Fire” – Izumi Suzuki (translated from Japanese by Helen O’Horan)

“I’d always be the one to get obsessed when I first met someone. Then he’d get ignited by my fire. He’d decide we should start going steady. And just about then, every time, a new man would magically appear. It’s not nice to admit it, but I’d then have zero problem betraying the first one. I ran at a different tempo to most of my lovers…. There’s an affected quality to my affection.”

My thanks to @netgalley and @versobooks for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published on 12th November.

Her first novel to be translated into English after two short story collections, “Set My Heart on Fire” is still quite story-based, but is linked through the central character Izumi, a version of the author herself. Set in the clubs and bars of 70s Tokyo, we see a young woman in her twenties struggling with life and relationships (especially relationships), set to a background of classic American and Japanese rock.

I haven’t read “Terminal Boredom”, which seems to be more dystopian but with a punky edge (if someone could confirm this?), but this book wasn’t really for me. I’m past the point in my life where I’m going to care about dull relationships between young people stuck in mundanity whilst yearning for more. There’s some great writing at points, and Izumi struck me as an interesting and nuanced character, but the conversations bored me and were a slog to get through, to the point where I almost didn’t finish it.

This book has an audience, but it isn’t me, despite the references to a lot of music that I love. Could it be more for fans of Sally Rooney?

"‘𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴,’ 𝘐 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮."

As all debuts go, this one's imperfect, cluttered, and unfocussed, but Suzuki's brilliance shines through in her observant eye for the nuances in men and women in the underground rock scene of Japan in the 70s. She's looking at appetite and carnage. She's following the blues, the hues of it, how it's tracked in romance, lust, and desire.

Though it falls flat in direction, spurts of Suzuki's brilliance shine through, like rushing through the rough to find her odd glows and glimmers, diamonds in her sensitivity and awe for the universe, how vast it is and how small it crafts her world:

"..𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘹𝘪𝘴. 𝘈𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘐’𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮. 𝘐𝘵 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥. 𝘔𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵’𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳. 𝘙𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘑𝘶𝘯, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦. 𝘔𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯. 𝘐𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦’𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦. 𝘐 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘦."

Examples like this set the stones for the soft sci-fi she writes into her later short stories.

*I regret the fact that I hadn't written more when I was younger. I think so much of it runs with a ferocity, a desire to live, or live a bit longer than we had hoped, to see its worth. Suzuki kept a gaze in worth's eyes, only to be left with hollow eyes, an unfocussed vision. But it's her writing that keeps the focus there.

"𝘞𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦."
"𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘢𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺."

The way this book tugged on my heartstrings… This definitely won’t be the last book that I read from this author. Every sentence was a gut punch and beautifully indicated.

Reading Izumi Suzuki's short stories is a very unsettling and disturbing experience. Her imagination when it comes to imagining possible futures is a wonder. This novel, however, is not a sci-fi story. The plot follows a woman named Izumi, who is in her mid twenties at the start and living the party girl life: alcohol, drugs, and lots of sex with young musicians.

The first part feels a little like short stories, portraying Izumi's sexual encounters and her feelings about the different men she sleeps with. It is in the second part, when she is older and married to one of these men that we can see the larger picture Suzuki is portraying. There's a undercurrent of loneliness that goes through the plot, with Izumi's relationships feeling like seeing her try to reach others, but never quite reaching them. The party girl life is lonely and not really very glamorous in this novel, and the clear and direct style kind of allows us to see through Izumi's façade and confront her loneliness and our own.

I was kindly sent a review copy from Verso via Netgally. Thanks so much!

I was initially excited for this book. I thought it had immense potential at being a popular title.

However, as I read through it, it was bland. The vignettes were doing nothing to make up for the character and her questionable choices and decision. I tried my best to be open minded and not judge a book by its character. However, there was only so much I could take. The book might just not be for me. I am definitely not its target market. It was uninteresting, bland, and questionable. Some part felt forced others just did not flow right. I don't think this book is a lost cause. In the hands of the right readers, it has the potential to be enjoyable and thought provoking.

3.5

i’m a simple girl. i find out that a book is set in the 70s sex, drugs, and rock n roll era and i’m interested. bonus points that instead of the typical california backdrop, this is set in japan.

i overall really enjoyed this quick novel. there were some truly beautiful lines throughout that i appreciated. the book heavily relies on dialogue and depicting and discussing human interaction. the main character, izumi, comes across many different characters throughout the story and all of them are pretty well-rounded and unique despite the page count.

i will say that i found the pacing to be a bit odd. i felt like the beginning of the novel dragged on a bit but when izumi first meets jun everything feels rushed. i actually think this book would’ve benefited from being longer. i wanted more context and overall more time to fully grasp the story and get lost in the world.

tl;dr: sex, drugs, and rock n roll except not quite as fun but still enjoyable with some beautiful writing sprinkled in as a treat

(thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc!)

Thank you Verso Books and NetGalley for an e-ARC.

For at least half of the book, I found the writing reminiscent to Haruki Murakami's earlier works. Someone in their 20s, fooling around with as much people as they can trying to fill some sort of void or loneliness. And for a while I felt like the main character, whose name is very interesting, is a female version of Murakami's male protagonists. Then there's the music element as well. So I couldn't help but compare the their storytelling.

Even though this was a complete page-turner, I was shocked by that dark turn of events given that the main character was written as someone who seems strong-willed and not at all the type to be submissive. And I can't help but think that this is somewhat a thinly veiled memoir.

Perhaps I'm just not the intended audience for this. Either way, the writing and translation was captivating enough for me to stay till the end.

I'd read anything Izumi wrote tbh. So happy to be able to read her work translated to english. What an intriguing whirlwind of a coming-of-age novel full of sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

When it comes to Izumi Suzuki, I have a particular affectioj towards her. Probably because she was such a fascinating person to begin with. Encountered her first work translated into English, Terminal Boredom in 2022, a collection of dystopian short stories filled with incredible ideas and feminism empowerment in each of her stories but there were lingering nostalgia and melancholy to her world. I remembered reading the opening story Woman and Woman during a heavy migraine episode post-withdrawal of medications that forced me to retire early to bed instead of reading and was left with a weird sense of amazement and fascination despite the buzzing pain in my head. Its her voice in that story that hooked me to her works since then and I'm always excited to read more of her work.

Then came the second collection of short stories released last year in 2023, Hit Parade of Tears which had some of my personal favourite but overall, a lacklustre completed work compared to Terminal Boredom. There are something unique about her world she created, the kind of alternate universe she perhaps imagined out of her mind to put the real life away from her, a utopia I might say. But this is just my personal opinion and assumption as we can never know how she created all of this as her life ended at such young age.

With this new upcoming novel tranlsated, we get glimpses of Izumi Suzuki as a person. Dubbed as autofiction, this story reflected or semi based on her life so its like reading a real life account of her as a struggling youthful woman in her 20s up to her terrible marriage to an addicted, troubled mind bassist called Jun. When I first read this, I was baffled because its different. Its way different than any of her works I have read. With 13 vignettes of personal account of a woman named Izumi, this novel highlighted her tumultous life in the 70s jazz music scene, fillef with sex, drugs, relationships and the domestic affairs she fell into. The rawness of the whole storied with dialogues on her life, the thoughts of her own addiction, mental health, eating disorder, copious amounts of sex to feel fullfilled, the three men in her life that are so troubled musicians with their substance abuse and the whole shitty underground music scenes, the dirty and dark world of theirs. Reading this was not a pleasant experience, its slow, meandering of monologues, with monotonous dialogues between Izumi and her friends, up to the point of her marriage with Jun, its all sounds boring to some people. But I was fascinated, enraptured albeit hated some of the actions done in here. This was a personal account of someone's life that I cannot judge entirely based on the narrative as it can be exaggerated for all I know.

In the end, I think this novel told us the reality of musicians and the industry they were in with the crooked nature of popularity and some fked up mentality. Its sad to see Izumi living in the kind of dictated by her pleasure of being used for sex as a way to feel loved or coping mechanism from drugs.

Thank you to Netgalley and Verso Books for the review copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

I am really starting to suspect that I struggle with Japanese fiction that has been translated. I am yet to find a novel that has been put into English that I have loved, and I think it's a sad failure of the English language above all else. It is a shame, too, because often I think I can see what the author was going for and I get hints of what was trying to be summoned up, but it just falls short of being able to give me anything beyond the surface level.

There is a tendency in this book towards describing women's bodies in a way that feels slightly cheap, and while I understand that this book is meant to be about the music scene in the 70s, it felt lacking in the messages it was putting out. Perhaps this is also a reflection on me, still in my 20s, but completely unable to relate to any of the sorts of things in this novel. Everything here felt vapid and vain, and while I understand that is part of the scene at the time, I found that this book just lacked the sort of soul I was hoping it would have.

I do think that this is a good book, for the people fond of music it’s perfect. I’m not one of those people, but overall I enjoyed it.
The characters well fleshed out, the discussions seemed realistic, the mundanity of life…
I couldn’t “relate” or “care” for the part with music but, as I said, it depends on your sensitivity with music
thank you netgalley for the copy

Thanks to Verso Books and NetGalley for the E-ARC!
As a reader who enjoyed Suzuki's writing in 'Terminal Boredom', I was excited to learn that her debut novel would be translated and published this year. I was even more excited when I received the ARC.
The novel is set in the depths of the 1970s Tokyo music scene and tells the story of Izumi's 20s and 30s, navigating addiction, herself, and horrible men. I expected more of an idealized tale of a musician's muse and was blindsided by the saddening, traumatic turn in Izumi's life. Suzuki's writing has a somewhat apathetic nature, which becomes especially apparent in this book and makes it somewhat difficult to fully empathize with the protagonist. Yet it also makes so much sense as it gives the character this disconnected voice in light of the pain in her life.
I think it is important to also keep in mind that this is a product of the 1970s and an author who not only shared her first name with the protagonist but whose life ran in parallel, full of tragedy and turmoil.
All of this led me to give this book a 4-star rating, although the writing may not be amazing. Izumi Suzuki fascinates me more with every bit of her writing I read and the lore I learn about her.

A coming-of-age novel with added sex, drugs and rock'n'roll

When you're in your early twenties, you're trying on personas and seeing what fits, testing the limits of what you can achieve as a new adult, the things you want to do, can do and can't do. In her debut novel, Suzuki writes of her contemporaneous world, of the 1970s Japanese c0unterculture, the little spaces between the tradition of Japan and its twentieth century reaction to the West, a world made in the gaps and the shadows, of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll. The narrator, also called Izuki, is an all too knowing young woman, eager for the touch of men to assuage her need for drugs; both are equally addictive to this new adult, trying to be world-weary when she's really only newly reborn. The fictional Izumi finds herself in increasingly difficult situations and relationships, until it all comes to a head, and the piper must be paid, the music must be faced,

Written in urgent, dialogue heavy scenes, the narrative sits right on Izumi's shoulder, as discomforting and uncomfortable as that might be, and the conversations are like hard-boiled screwball comedies, the comedy very close to turning to tragedy, the screwball the weird truths behind the posturing and bravery.

Despite the fifty years' distance between the novel and now, there's something very contemporary about this book, written at the very start of Suzuki's writing career. The world of the book isn't perfect, nor is the world perfect today. The challenges to women in a male-dominated world haven't gone away. And the folly and bravura of the young remains a potent source of narrative unease and energy.

Not for everyone: three stars.

This book follows the 70s rock scene in Japan. We follow a girl named Izumi in her 20s navigating life, relationships, friendships, and said music scene. It’s told in a series of short stories and seems to be….autofiction maybe? Overall I felt like for such a short book a lot of these stories dragged because they were just her having conversations with people and having copious amounts of sex. I thought the character was interesting and she had a lot of beautiful quotes and thoughts that were relatable but at the same time she did a lot of questionable things. I thought the ending was sad but the rest of this book kind of bored me. Especially the ongoing dialogue about music.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Izumi Suzuki is able to capture the seedy underbelly of the Japanese underground music scene of the 70s — complete with all the sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll that you can imagine in her, newly translated into English, novel Set My Heart on Fire.

This is my first time reading anything by Izumi Suzuki, in fact, I’d never heard about her until now. But I simply couldn’t resist reading Set My Heart on Fire with its promise of detailing the turbulent life of a woman in her 20s in the bar and club scenes of 1970s Tokyo. The idea of struggling through your youth, with iconic music as the background, while trying to fill the void with anything from drugs and alcohol, to sex with musicians? It sounded just up my alley.

I’m not sure I loved this book, maybe I would’ve devoured it whole when I was in my own 20s more than I would now, but I was definitely unable to put it down. I’m not, as mentioned, familiar with Izumi Suzuki, so when I finished the book I took the liberty to read up on her — or as much as I could, there’s very little information available in english! — and it seems that Set My Heart on Fire is a sort of autofiction novel that is semi based on her own life?
If that is the case, I do think it bumps the rating of it up a lot more for me. Seeing as it’s an exploration of her own youth, told in thirteen vignettes that stretches through her 20s and 30s. It makes it feel a lot more impactful in a way? A lot more raw and painful to read. Either way, whether autobiographical, autofiction or just plain fiction, Set My Heart on Fire is a story of a woman feeling lost in her youth and into adulthood. The feeling of losing out on life, when settling for less, and the wish to have it all back — to be young and dumb again, to not have made the mistakes you did because you didn’t think you could get better? But then again, to also not be caught in the past so you’re unable to live the future you could have.

Izumi Suzuki, despite this being written in the 80s and taking place in the 70s, still captures the worries and fears of any young person even today in 2024. The translator, Helen O’Horan, did an exceptional job bringing those feelings to life in English and it’s fantastic that the publisher is allowing for the rest of us to be able to read Suzuki’s works in English. I’m definitely curious to read her other work, which is more akin to science fiction, but which Verso has also made available in English!

TL;DR this book captures all the emotions of being young and dumb, making mistakes, and sitting with those feelings when you’re older. Izumi Suzuki is such an interesting person, I can’t help but want to read more by her!

/// Thank you to Verso Books for the ARC!

"Set My Heart on Fire" is a captivating exploration of Japanese pop culture. This book presents a commendable philosophical constitution. Reading this novel has given me a refreshing departure from the premises I'm usually accustomed to. One of the standout features of this book is its exceptionally dynamic tempo, mirroring the vibrant and fast-paced nature of the pop culture it portrays. The emotional spectrum covered in this novel is broad and impactful. "Set My Heart on Fire" is quite brilliantly composed.


Thank you, NetGalley and Verso Books for the ARC.

Thank you to @netgalley and @versobooks for this #arc, #setmyheartonfire by #IzumiSuzuki translated by #helenohoran

Firstly I need to set a little context. I am a big Suzuki fan, I waited and waited for her first short story collection to come out and absolutely loved them. I read the second collection and enjoyed them too. Her life is fascinating if a little sad and depressing too.

Initially I wrongly assumed this was book 3 of Suzuki's short stories as I understood that, that was the plan for her collection. This is in fact her debut novel, and I am really pleased to be able to read her writing in a longer and more detailed format.

The novel draws from an era, music and scene that I have no knowledge or understanding of if I am honest, I think for someone who knows rock and roll, the blues and the 70s you will really appreciate all the references that I will have missed. On a purely writing review, Suzuki never ceases to impress, some of the passages are just beautiful and so well written. The book flows or jumps from period to period so it can feel a little disconnected but once you have read the book it doesn't feel like that.

I am unsure how to summarise the story itself, it is about a female lead, based no doubt in part on our lovely author, love, music and life events. I found the focus on these life events and decisions quite hard hitting in some respects and again they were written brilliantly.

I would add trigger warnings about domestic abuse and substance misuse, if you need further info drop me a message.

This read like a historic fiction which it has been sold as, so if you like that genre and want a very real insight via fiction this is the book for you. If you generally enjoy excellent writing and profound narration of some really complex life events, definitely add this to your list too. I suggest if you have read either or both short story collections you need to read this to compare and contrast.

Overall I enjoyed this novel and cannot wait to read anything #IzumiSuzuki has released!

#honnomushi100 #reading #japanesefiction #translatedfiction #translatedjapaneseliterature #booksfromjapan #translatedjapanesefiction #japaneseliterature