The Many Roads to Japan/Autumn Shadows in August

Give it a listen!

11. Final Episode - Autumn Shadows in August

Send to Friends | Leave a Comment | Download | Permalink

April 15, 2006 09:21 PM PDT

Modeled roughly on Malcolm Lowry's "Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid," "Autumn Shadows in August" is part homage to Lowry and Hermann Hesse, part mushroom retrospective, and part middle-aged love story. David Thompson is an expatriate American teaching at a Japanese university and suffering from hepatitis C. His wife Kaori is recovering from cancer surgery. Feeling a strong sense of their own mortality, confusion about the significance of what they have done with their lives, and a need to escape the constrictions of their life in Japan, the two set out on a journey to Europe to retrace a path from David's adventurous youth and locate a German benefactor from the past. What lies ahead--a trip througth the Magic Theater, a sudden death, an encounter with Lowry's ghost, and a descent into the Capuchin Crypt in Rome--will change their lives irrevocably.

(14.3 mb; 31:34 minutes)
To order a trade paperback or PDF download copy of this novel, go to my bookstore. You can also order from Amazon.com and other online bookstores, but they're a little more expensive.

Podcast Summary

Two books: (1) an ESL novella-textbook about a Vietnam War conscientious objector's 14-year search for identity and (2) an hallucinogenic mid-life crisis/adventure novel, and homage to Malcolm Lowry and Hermann Hesse.

About Robert

View Profile

Add as Friend

I was born and raised in Humboldt County, California. In 1969, I entered the Air Force, subsequently became a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, and served time in a military prison for refusing to fight in the war. In my twenties, I roamed across the United States, went to Europe twice, and made one journey around the world. During that time, I worked as a millhand, construction laborer, stevedore, mailman, baker, saute cook, and oilrig steward.

I've lived and taught English in Japan since 1983. I'm the author of "Autumn Shadows in August," a mid-life crisis/adventure story and homage to Malcolm Lowry and Hermann Hesse; "Toraware," a novel about the obsessive relationship of three misfits from different cultural backgrounds in 1980s Kobe, Japan; "Looking for the Summer," the story of a Vietnam War conscientious objector's adventures and search for identity on the road from Paris to Calcutta in 1977; and "The Many Roads to Japan," a novella used as a textbook-reader in Japanese universities. I've also written several articles on teaching English as a foreign language. My wife and I live near Fukuoka, Japan, where I'm a professor at Fukuoka International University.

Share Podcast