Product Description

A surreal coming-of-age tale that establishes Ryu Murakami as one of the most inventive young writers in the world today.

Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.

Together and apart, their journey from a hot metal box to a stunning, savage climax is a brutal funhouse ride through the eerie landscape of late-twentieth-century Japan.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53602 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-22
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Oliver Stone, film maker
"Devilish and brilliant."

Banana Yoshimoto, author of Kitchen
"Its power grabbed me by the heart."

Beverley Curran, The Daily Yomiuri
"... an amazing, imaginative adventure."

Customer Reviews

Depressingly Dire
I've read the reviews by people on amazon, because a detailed book review is hard to find online, and I cannot fathom how anyone can see this book as being good.

It is extremely depressing and miserable, but not in a way that you can relate and feel emotional about, but in a horribly boring way. Every page turn, you soon learn to expect something terrible will happen, even if there is no real reason for it to. The author disjointedly writes about his shallow characters, whose actions can be predicted effortlessly.

Needlessly depressing, the plot slugglishly moves from one horribly predictable event to the next, dragging you into a world of misery, leaving all emotions except boredom behind.

I would not recommend this book, and although I have heard better things about his other novels, I shall be looking elsewhere.

translation isn't great.
I would've given this five stars, as it is imaginative, deep and shocking in all the right measures, but it fell down with a disappointing translation. It was clear at times that Snyder had literally translated whole sections from the Japanese which, although beautiful, makes no sense in English. I was also disheartened to see a well-spoken Japanese woman say "It must of hurt a lot."
But translation-holes aside, I really enjoyed this novel. It may have been depressing and frightening at times, but it is truly unique.

Coin Locker Babies
This is potentially the most enthralling and all encompassing of Ryu Murakami's novels. it explores the very depths of the human psyche and what it means to be an individual. it vividly colourful discriptions and unstoppable narative provide the reader with a journey of a lifetime. this book is perfect for keen readers of Oriental Literature or just individuals with a interest in a good read with an emotive storyline. let me finish by saying that the experience of the book stays with you, and your perception of normality and rationality for, life