A hazy novel about rock n' roll in '70s Tokyo, drifting, drugs, tryin' to find love (in the wrong places and, sometimes, in the right places, for awhile anyway).
The first novel from Izumi Suzuki to be published in English: a candid, intimate exploration of passion, music and transgression
Hope I’m in for a good time, I thought. Even if it’s just for tonight.
Set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo, Set My Heart On Fire tells the story of Izumi in her turbulent twenties. Through a series of disarmingly frank vignettes, author Izumi Suzuki presents an unforgettable portrait of a young woman encountering missteps and miscommunication, good music and unreliable men, powerful drugs and disorientating meds. Izumi usually keeps her relationships short but complicated, until she meets Jun.
Set My Heart on Fire is a visceral novel about mistaken relationships and the convolutions of desire, about regret and acceptance. Pulsing through the narration is the protagonist’s love of music, a vital soundtrack spanning the Zombies, T. Rex and the Rolling Stones as well as underground Japanese psychedelic-rock bands such as the Tigers and the Tempters.
About the Author
Izumi Suzuki (1949–1986) was a countercultural icon and a pioneer of Japanese science fiction. She worked as a keypunch operator before finding fame as a model and actress, but it was her writing that secured her reputation. She took her own life at the age of thirty-six.
Praise For…
"The work and messages of Ursula K. Le Guin, the author’s longer-lived contemporary, come to mind. Both Suzuki and Le Guin knew that gender roles are a matter of costume or control, affect or affliction. The terms we use to define humanity are often inhuman" —Catherine Lacey, New York Times
"Suzuki's unique sensibility, which combined a punk aesthetic with a taste for the absurd. Her work-populated by misfits, loners, and femmes fatales alongside extraterrestrial boyfriends, intergalactic animal traffickers, and murderous teen-agers with E.S.P.-wryly blurs the boundary between earthly delinquency and otherworldly phenomena." —New Yorker
"Wild and restless ... I can't think of anyone I'd rather read than this countercultural icon of the Japanese literary underground." —Frieze
"Suzuki's distinctly misanthropic voice enlivens these narratives of women whose mundane lives are altered - sometimes humorously, sometimes catastrophically" —Washington Post
"Suzuki’s full-length Set My Heart on Fire takes place in the counterculture of 1970s Tokyo, full of rock and roll, drugs, and transgression. It’s a world Suzuki knew intimately: the punk icon was deep in alternative music and film scenes during her short but brilliant life. If you like the bang and crash of loud music, and the passion and desire it inspires, you don’t want to miss Suzuki’s writing." —James Folta, Lit Hub; Most Anticipated Books of 2024
"This is a novel about rock and roll and the obsession it inspires, set mostly in the quiet, late-night spaces where young people define their world through music....This novel is short and engrossing, and a great addition and counterpoint to Suzuki’s short stories that Verso has already put out. While this novel doesn’t have any of the speculative sci-fi elements of her stories, Set My Heart on Fire has the same dreamy, almost dazed tone." —Emily Temple, Lit Hub
"Suzuki blazes new emotional territory in this semi-autobiographical, instant cult classic…Viscerally translated by Helen O'Horan, Set My Heart on Fire follows its narrator, also named Izumi, through Tokyo's 1970s underground psychedelic-rock scene…A captivating example of Izumi Suzuki's virtuosic control of language and insight into the heart of gendered power dynamics." —Shelf Awareness
"An intimate, candid portrait of a 20-something woman navigating the tumultuous world of music, partying, and relationships in 1970s Japan..Vivid and unflinching." —Kirkus Reviews
"Gritty, sexy, and wholly rock ’n’ roll, Suzuki’s first novel translated into English follows 20-year-old Izumi navigating life, love, and music in the underground scene in ’70s Japan." —The Millions
"Best known for her short science fiction, Izumi Suzuki’s posthumous novel is a unique and thrilling tale of life and music in Japan’s 1970s demimonde." —Nick Mamatas, The Fabulist
"As vivid and visceral as the rock and roll culture it describes" —AnOther Magazine
"Izumi Suzuki innovatively encapsulates modern anxieties which are born of the standards of yesterday, and which overbearingly coddle the possibilities of tomorrow." —Maria Farsoon, The Skinny
"This 'visceral' novel transports readers to a very specific time and place, showcasing unusual romances." —Best Books of 2024, Radio Times
"This latest slim volume has all the feminist filth and fuckery that I’ve come to love about Suzuki’s style." —Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine
"Told in her signature elliptic, sometimes abrasive style, which tends to leave much unsaid ... though Izumi’s narrative is ultimately mournful, her tragic but tender love story is lifted by Suzuki’s wry, rebellious spirit." —Miriam Balanescu, i paper
"An electric time capsule ... [Set My Heart On Fire] seems to be an attempt at freezing time right in the moments of wanting" —Thu-Huong Ha, Japan Times
"Suzuki’s tabloid biography is far from the most interesting thing about her. Underneath the troubled "It girl" is an even more troubled and thrillingly ambivalent writer" —Maria Dimitrova, Daily Telegraph
"A remarkable quest for love and agency in a world that seems to dictate that achieving the former requires a woman to surrender the latter" —Nirmala Devi, ArtReview Asia
"There is a knowing ennui to the writing, which taps into the disillusionment of 1980s youth culture a la Bret Easton Ellis" —Claire Allfree, Daily Mail
