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I’ve read two short story collections by Izumi Suzuki; the first of these, Terminal Boredom, was incredible, while the second, Hit Parade of Tears, seemed to drop off quite significantly in terms of quality. When Terminal Boredom was published, I could find very little information on the author � there wasn’t even an English-language Wikipedia page for her at the time � and I had no idea she’d also written novels. In fact, it turns out Suzuki was a more prolific writer than I’d initially assumed. This book, the first of her novels to be translated, follows a beautiful but unhappy young woman’s adventures in the Tokyo music scene of the 1970s. Towards the end, it takes a more serious turn when she (rather inexplicably) marries an unpleasant bully. From what I can gather, parts of this are pretty true to the author’s own life; accordingly, the protagonist here is named Izumi.

Set My Heart On Fire reminded me insistently, maybe even eerily, of Anna Kavan’s writing: its semi-autobiographical nature; the narrator’s detachment and ennui; the drugs; an abusive, loveless marriage. Kavan, too, is a writer whose oeuvre is a mixture of speculative and realist fiction. Even Izumi’s preference for musicians as romantic and sexual partners is reminiscent of the way Kavan portrays racing drivers in ‘World of Heroes�. Maybe it’s unfair to say this novel pales in comparison to Kavan’s Who Are You? or Julia and the Bazooka, but the thematic (and, sometimes, stylistic) similarities are so strong I couldn’t help comparing them. There are some really vivid, arresting moments in Set My Heart On Fire, and if you know the author’s life story, it’s difficult not to read a certain pathos into the ending. Yet it feels frustratingly uneven, with a dizzying amount of random sex in the first two-thirds followed by an abrupt drop into more gruelling subject matter when Izumi meets Jun. So far, I’ve found Suzuki’s realist fiction less successful than her sci-fi.