Crawling at Night

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Ito is a Japanese sushi chef, recently arrived in New York City, haunted by his past. Mariane, an alcoholic waitress in her 30s who longs for the baby daughter she left behind in Virginia, exudes a frail, broken beauty that captivates Ito. There is something in her that reminds him of Xiu-Xiu, the prostitute he frequented in Japan while his wife, Tomoko, slowly wasted away from cancer, a loss soon compounded by another, violent death. These two virtual strangers scramble for salvation over the course of two nights in downtown, down-and-out Manhattan. When Mariane is fired, Ito leaps at the opportunity to be her savior: he vows he will help her reclaim her baby, her sobriety and her dignity. Their stunted blossom of intimacy is all awkward fits and starts, revelation and self-preservation the delicate yet harsh experience of the emotionally wounded and fiercely, desperately lonely."--BOOK JACKET.

FROM THE CRITICS

Mary Gaitskill - Salon

Ms. Power has a gift for quick characterizations that layer oppositional qualities with subtlety and intensity; her portrayal of the prematurely experienced young girl's seduction of Ton is lovely, gentle and deliciously crude....Although the most obvious emotional tone in the book is one of sorrow and loss (Ling and Ton are separated, Ito and Mariane become more lost and desperate), Power never forgets the rich quality of her world, its variety and essential vitality.

Jabari Asim - Washington Post

Sometimes such deliberate and flashy wordplay gets in the way of a story. Happily that's not the case here: Underneath all those hypnotically undulating sentences, fully realized protagonists keep company with equally convincing supporting characters. Just as important, Crawling at Night is also an effective exploration of the lies we tell ourselves to help us handle the business of living.

Publishers Weekly

The two protagonists of debut novelist Powers's compelling tale of urban despair are by turns hopeless, deluded and self-destructive, but their misguided stumblings are transformed by the charged prose and headlong pace of Power's skillful narrative. Ito is a Japanese sushi chef, recently arrived in New York City, haunted by his past. Mariane, an alcoholic waitress in her 30s who longs for the baby daughter she left behind in Virginia, exudes a frail, broken beauty that captivates Ito. There is something in her that reminds him of Xiu-Xiu, the prostitute he frequented in Japan while his wife, Tomoko, slowly wasted away from cancer, a loss soon compounded by another, violent death. These two virtual strangers scramble for salvation over the course of two nights in downtown, down-and-out Manhattan. When Mariane is fired, Ito leaps at the opportunity to be her savior: he vows he will help her reclaim her baby, her sobriety and her dignity. Their stunted blossom of intimacy is all awkward fits and starts, revelation and self-preservation the delicate yet harsh experience of the emotionally wounded and fiercely, desperately lonely. Borrowing tricks from Virginia Woolf, Powers weaves her narrative through raw present and bittersweet flashbacks, making forays into the minds of supporting characters and walk-ons; she manages to blend literary, experimental and straightforward writing to brilliant, heartbreaking effect. Her starkly realistic characters and terse, lyrical prose herald her as an exciting new voice and she should captivate a wide range of readers. (Apr.) Forecast: The publisher is putting a good deal of enthusiasm into this release, with a first printing of 50,000 and a 16-city author tour. Some good reviews and word-of-mouth and the author's own varied background, including a stint as a sushi chef could go a long way toward building sales. The cover photo of a near-naked young woman won't hurt the book one bit. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Ito, a sushi chef in New York City and a widower who lives alone, has developed a crush on Marianne, a waitress who also lives alone. When he notices her sneaking a sip of saki, he decides that she needs help and invites her to dinner. As their relationship develops, we learn about their histories, Ito's life in Japan, his wife's death, and his mistress, and Marianne's life in North Carolina, her daughter, and her string of one night stands. Along the way, we meet a cast of other characters who are also living isolated, lonely lives, including a Vietnamese refugee, the owner of the sushi bar, and an erotic dancer. Each chapter is introduced with menu of foods that affect the story. In her debut, former sushi chef Power focuses on the dark picture of urban life, poignantly exploring the failure of people to build meaningful relationships. Recommended for larger collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/00.] Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A dark, murky, undisciplined first novel full of sushi, sex, and suffering. Power is at her best when describing the selection, preparation, and serving of Asian food, something she does with visceral gusto and authority. Indeed, there are many scenes in this unrelentingly grim story that are well crafted, even lyrical-but they remain only that: fragments in a pastiche of shifting styles and voices that seems to contain just about everything the author may have encountered in life to date. The main characters are a sad, middle-aged, prostitute; an obsessed, guilt-ridden sushi chief (Ito); and his equally sad love interest, a failed, thirtysomething, alcoholic waitress (Marianne) at the sushi bar where he works. Most of the story takes place over a two-day period during which Ito asks Marianne to dinner, partly to warn her that her drinking at work has been noticed. Marianne passes out drunk in her bath, sleeps through the date, and is subsequently fired by the restaurant owner (Yoshi), who, we learn, has previously raped her. Ito then hooks up with the desperate Marianne in an attempt to save her, seduce her, or match her drink-for-drink (it's unclear which) and executes a robbery of the sushi bar on her behalf. Numerous lengthy flashbacks describe characters in the lives of Ito and Marianne, stories of alcoholism, murder, and joylessly repellent sex, including child molestation and child prostitution-tales that bear little relation to each other and eventually overwhelm what little primary storyline there is. Ito and Marianne remain depressed, unsympathetic characters with almost nothing in common beyond the fact that they have both abandoned children in the past, and theirpairingat the end in search of the lost children seems forced and mawkish rather than hopeful. An unfocussed effort, much like a series of sketches for, say, a story collection. First printing of 50,000; author tour