The Earthquake Bird

Plot

Reception

• A. N. Wilson in The Telegraph writes "Without giving away the secret, Lucy is obsessed, sexually obsessed, by a young man called Teiji who works in a noodle bar, and who likes taking arty photographs of tall buildings reflected in the puddles of Tokyo's pavements, and of her in the nude. In its spare way, this novel, which I have now read three times, is one of the best accounts - and this is not all that it is - of female sexuality, that subject of and mystery for any male reader. It is not, very decidedly not, a book however which will reveal what 'they' feel when in love, or in bed - only what she, and a pretty distinctive she, feels."
• Publishers Weekly concludes "The descriptions of Japan's landscapes, language, people and customs are delivered with fluency and intimacy, yet with the slightly detached clarity of an expat. Some readers may find Jones's intermingling of first- and third-person narration self-conscious and distracting...and the hazy ending raises more questions than it answers. But this is less a whodunit than an examination of the slippery nature of truth and memory, obsessions and betrayals, all of which Jones handles with confidence and skill"