Critical Essay | Critical Review by Oliver Conant

SOURCE: "Nothing to Laugh About," in The New Leader, Vol. LXXIII, No. 15, November 12-26, 1990, pp. 22-3.

In the following review, Conant disparages East Is East's plotting, characterization, and prose as superficial.

A young sailor in the Japanese Merchant Marine, Hiro Tanaka, jumps ship off the coast of Georgia, swims ashore and tries to survive on his own as an illegal alien. Such is the unlikely premise of T. Coraghessan Boyle's farcical, often crude and, on occasion, mordantly funny new novel [East Is East]. Despite its heavy does of unreality, the account of Hiro's brief, disastrous sojourn in the New World is at times strangely compelling.

The author of many short stories and three previous novels, most recently the highly regarded World's End, Boyle is fond of the narrative of strenuous physical adventure. Although his latest work casts a somewhat wider satirical net, at base it simply continues to...
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