SOURCE: "A Superficial Look inside '90s Japan," in The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, March 24, 1996, p. K14.

[In the mixed review below, Ward praises the plot and characters of Audrey Hepburn's Neck but faults Brown's prose.]

This novel about today's Japan resembles one of those intriguing little washi-paper-covered boxes that open to reveal a smaller box nestled inside, which contains another and another and so on down to the very last box, which might be as small as a lima bean. Reading Audrey Hepburn's Neck is like unpacking, one after the other, every received opinion of Japan current among its foreign residents in the past few years. You are amazed that so much can be squeezed into such a slim package, yet you close the book feeling oddly unsatisfied, surfeited on surface impressions.

To his credit, Alan Brown has tried to give a new twist to his contribution to...