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3.0 

Seventeen

By Hideo Yokoyama
Seventeen by Hideo Yokoyama digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

“A meditative and multilayered narrative that is as much about a man at a mid-life crossroads as it is about journalism or a plane crash.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

1985. Kazumasa Yuuki, a seasoned reporter at the North Kanto Times, runs a daily gauntlet of the power struggles and office politics that plague its newsroom. But when an air disaster of unprecedented scale occurs on the paper’s doorstep, its staff is united by an unimaginable horror and a once-in-a-lifetime scoop.

2003. Seventeen years later, Yuuki remembers the adrenaline-fueled, emotionally charged seven days that changed his and his colleagues’ lives. He does so while making good on a promise he made that fateful week—one that holds the key to its last solved mystery and represents Yuuki’s final, unconquered fear.

From Hideo Yokoyama, the celebrated author of Six Four, comes Seventeen—an investigative thriller set amid the aftermath of disaster.

“Adrenaline-filled.” —The New Yorker

“Tense and powerful.” —The Wall Street Journal

“An astringent, unforgiving picture of modern Japanese society.” —Barry Forshaw, The Guardian

Seventeen is a thrilling, thought-provoking, and important book, and one for anyone who cares about the state of journalism.” —Hans Rollmann, PopMatters

“An engrossing thriller . . . Readers will be deeply moved.” —Publishers Weekly

“A darkly humorous tale.” —Booklist

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27 Reviews

3.0
Surprised Face with Open Mouth“I fully expected this book to be a thriller since I got it from the Mystery/Thriller section. So for others wanting to pick up this book for that reason maybe you can reconsider. Having said that, I am pleasantly surprised how I liked Seventeen. The inner workings on a newspaper intrigued me that it kept me engaged and the characters have really made an impression (but there’s too many! there is a glosarry on the book to help you on this one)”
Thumbs Up“The ratings for this book would be so much higher if they dropped the "thriller" description and put "historical fiction". This is a true story of a tragic plane accident that happened in Japan, mixed with a fictional reporter trying to cover that story (plus some extra climbing on the side). It was good but I was left disappointed, cuz that was not the story I was promised. And our MC doesn't even go near the accident. That is how much "thriller" this book is. The only thrilling part is, are they gonna be late to print newspaper, and is someone getting punched or not.. If you are interested in what it looked like to work in newspapers industry (in Japan few decades ago) it's an interesting book to pick up IG.”
“First, this is not a mystery. This is not a thriller. As a journalist I enjoyed reading about the choices made in a newsroom, the clash between advertising and circulation and editorial and why everyone thinks the other guy is an idiot. It felt pretty realistic. But as a book, I think I wanted more — the airline crash itself was very background to everything else, and I skim-read the last few chapters because it felt like I was reading the same stuff again and again. And the protagonist's self-pity felt tiresome.”

About Hideo Yokoyama

Born in 1957, Hideo Yokoyama worked for twelve years as an investigative reporter with a regional newspaper north of Tokyo before becoming one of Japan’s most acclaimed and bestselling fiction writers. Seventeen is his second novel to be translated into English.

Louise Heal Kawai comes from Manchester in the UK, but Japan has been her home since 1990. Her translations include Mieko Kawakami's Ms Ice Sandwich, A Quiet Place by Seicho Matsumoto, and Seishi Yokomizo's The Honjin Murders, a Detective Kindaichi mystery.

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