The Push Man & Other Stories

Having waded ankle deep at best in manga before opening Drawn and Quarterly's freshly released Yoshihiro Tatsumi collection The Push Man & Other Stories, I had nothing but loose expectations of masculine identity exploration, well-crafted yet open-ended short-storytelling, and the recommendations of a few people I respect printed on the back of the book--most specifically the words of Adrian Tomine from the book's introduction and his Village Voice interview I blogged about last week. The collection of short stories composed by Tatsumi back in 1969 takes a healthy amount of digestion. And though Chip Kidd pointedly associates the author with modern-day prose voices of Haruki Murakami and Kenzo Kitakata, I find myself placing these violently sex-pumped and sin-scuffed visions alongside the likes of Charles Bukowski, Tomine himself, and (to a lesser extent) Ernest Hemingway. It's not a book for the weak-stomached, but it is an jaw-grinding glimpse into darker sides of various male conditions in urban 1969 Japan.

Each story in the book (on average, 8 pages apiece), watches a different main character--always male and most often iconically wide-eyed and clean looking--as he is tempted usually roped in to participating in some sort of unsavory act of violence as a result of repressed masculine desires for control and sexual gratification. There are appearances of dead fetuses, smirk-glazed thoughts of Adolf Hitler, and numerous instances of resentment toward women littered about its pages. But ultimately, Tatsumi leaves the reader to decide where the blame in his worlds lies. His greatest skill showcased in this trade is his ability to lock on to a scene and leave the story told but ultimately unresolved. The resonating experience felt from most of these stories is that of the middle-aged working class male and his twisted exploits through guilty, lust, and revenge in settings of urban anonymity. And in cases like "Make-Up" and "Who Are You?" Tatsumi even delves into experiences of transgender identity and confusion in the face of Western occupation, which mix together well in the scheme of the book.

If you're looking for a warm and fuzzy set of stories next to the fireplace over hot cocoa, this is definitely not a light read you should touch; but Tatsumi holds his own next to Stateside indy comics artists of his day and offers a unique glimpse into an urban Japanese setting I've not encountered before in comics--much less in such raw and well-cut shorts. So it's got my recommendation, and there's an extra asterisk of must-read goodness tagged on to that for any other Tomine or Bukowski lovers out there. In fact, the intro and interview with Tatsumi (both by Tomine) included in the book alone make it more than worth at least perusing next time you happen by it on the rack.