NHFT virtual book club meeting #28 - There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

Following on from our absinthe soaked visit to fog-shrouded San Francisco in Jonathan Moore's twisty psychological thriller, The Poison Artist, we are moving across the Pacific to Japan in the shape of award winning author Kikuko Tsumura's surreal comic novel, There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job.

A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing – and ideally, very little thinking.

She is sent to a nondescript office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods. But observing someone for hours on end can be so inconvenient and tiresome. How will she stay awake? When can she take delivery of her favourite brand of tea? And, perhaps more importantly – how did she find herself in this situation in the first place?

As she moves from job to job, writing bus adverts for shops that mysteriously disappear, and composing advice for rice cracker wrappers that generate thousands of devoted followers, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful...

"An irreverent but thoughtful voice, with light echoes of Haruki Murakami... the book is uncannily timely... a novel as smart as is quietly funny" - Financial Times

'Quietly hilarious and deeply attuned to the uncanny rhythms and deadpan absurdity of the daily grind' - Sharlene Teo

The next meeting will be Thursday the 5th of October at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room.

Hope to see you there...