The stories of the gaijin in Japan are always quite interesting, particularly because the Land of the Rising Sun is a very homogenous country, not to mention historically unwelcome to strangers. Elizabeth Wilkerson lived in Tokyo where she practiced securities law, studied Butoh dance, and founded a company to present African-American culture to Japanese audience, and thus, experienced firsthand the concept of a foreigner living and working in Japan. Her experiences are concentrated in this thriller, which could easily be described as hi-tech, if it was not taking place in the 90s.
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Alison has moved to Japan with her investment banker boyfriend, Charles, quitting her law practice back in the USA, in an effort to grow closer to him and eventually get married, despite the fact that he was somewhat negative to the idea, insisting that his new job at Morgan Sachs would not leave him much time for their relationship. It turns out he was right, and Alison finds herself bored, with nothing to do, isolated by culture shock, limited language skills, and Charles’s long hours and annoying friends. Having no alternative, and after a series of failures to secure any kind of job, she embarks on a journey in the digital world, that, at the time, was anything but easy to navigate into.
Inside the labyrinth of chat rooms, she meets a Japanese man who puts her into dangerous thoughts, but also a troll who despises foreigners, and soon proves much more threatening than she ever imagined. A ray of hope eventually appears in the face of Yamada, a rich and mysterious woman, and the environmental law firm she owns, Green Space, but the expiring of Alison’s visa causes even more problems and a forced trip to Hong Kong complicates things even more. The return, however, proves additionally problematic and dangerous.
Elizabeth Wilkerson writes a novel that is definitely intriguing and quite rich contextually, although not every element of the “collection” that forms its narrative works fully. To begin with, one cannot fail but notice the rather thorough research the author has conducted, which also seems to derive from her own experiences. The lives of immigrants in Japan, and particularly women, is highlighted in the utmost detail, from the way people perceive foreigners (in a rather cliched opinion) to the issues immigration service and bureaucracy can cause, to the everyday problems of living in a country where the majority of its people do not speak foreign languages. The fact that Alison is essentially illiterate in Japan, despite being quite educated otherwise, is a point both interesting and realistic, with Wilkerson exploiting it in the most entertaining fashion. This amount of detail in research also expands to the way the internet worked in the 90s, environmental and international law, and even the presentation of Hong Kong, which is explored in all its glory.
On the other hand, the main plot line has some issues. For starters, the prop of the Deus ex Machina is used a bit too much and too conveniently (as it does in Hollywood films for that matter), essentially stripping the story from a part of its realism. Furthermore, and in contrast to the beginning of the book where the thoughts of the rest of the protagonists are also presented in quite intriguing fashion, as the story progresses, Wilkerson focuses exclusively on Alison, essentially deeming the rest of the characters almost irrelevant. Lastly, after a point, the narrative becomes too heavy with all the episodes occurring and the various issues the protagonist has to face, essentially making it function as more like a collection of incidents than a compact story.
On the other hand, the erotic scenes provide a rather welcome break, while the last part of the book, and particularly the way the ending unfolds is truly great, communicating the sense of agony in the best way, in probably the best part of the novel, at least in terms of writing.
The language Wilkerson uses is simple but eloquent, and actually fits the intricate narrative quite nicely, with the novel being very easy to read. The binary codes that function as page breaks are a nice touch, as are the different fonts that are used in the discussions in the chat rooms.
“Tokyo Firewall” has its faults, mostly deriving from Wilkerson’s eagerness to include as many elements as possible in the narrative, but in the end, the story is intriguing, Alison a captivating character, the amount of research impressive and the book quite easy to read, resulting in a work that definitely entertains.
