Goodbye Madame Butterfly

Japan's sexual hang-ups exposed as women liberate themselves from joyless, sexless marriages.

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Smart and lively and thoughtful and moving, like a good Studs Terkel without encyclopedic pretensions. -- Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events An eye-opening, detailed look at the private, intimate lives of Japanese women ... This is an intelligent and authoritative work, covering everything from adultery to sex volunteers and the role of fortune tellers in Japanese romance. It is at once illuminating and entertaining, credible and so engrossing you will find it difficult to put down. -- Robert Whiting, author of Tokyo Underworld, The Meaning of Ichiro and You Gotta Have Wa Kawakami's essays are] brilliantly written, and a perfect example of how similar bad marriages are, regardless of their setting.--Bookslut.com Often disturbing, always intriguing and insightful, these intimate portraits in Goodbye Madame Butterfly reveal the struggles and complexities of modern Japanese women. Sumie Kawakami takes us into a world where fortune tellers serve as counselors, where a female executive who turns tricks by night is seen as a heroine and where the hot blood of newlyweds quickly grows cold. Goodbye Madame Butterfly offers a modern twist on the tradition in Japanese literature to revel in tales of sexual exploits. Kawakami's nonfiction update on this theme offers strands of hope for women struggling to liberate themselves from joyless, sexless relationships. More info at: http: //goodbyemadamebutterfly.com Sumie Kawakami is a Japanese journalist and single mother who has written extensively on marriage and sex, including a 2004 book titled Tsuma no Koi (Wives in Love) with Astra, Inc., and three essays in Kuhaku &Other Accounts from Japan (Chin Music Press, 2005).