Graveyard of Memories

Author’s Note

Part of my writing method has always involved extensive on-site research for all the locales I use, but obviously Graveyard of Memories, set in 1972, presented a challenge in this regard. The challenge was multiplied by my desire to use real places — bars and jazz clubs and coffeehouses — that readers could visit if they wished.

I decided on a threefold solution: use existing places that have been around since at least 1972; concentrate the action in the older parts of Tokyo, chiefly in the east of the city, which have changed less over the decades than those in the more cosmopolitan west; and peruse photo books of 1960s and 1970s Tokyo to get a better feel for what’s different and what is largely unchanged. For lovers of the city, I recommend these books (the translations, doubtless inelegant or worse, are mine):

(A Little in the Past of Tokyo: Images of the Downtown 30 Years Ago, Kouhei Wakameda)

(Tokyo Photo Book: The Story of a Changing City, 1948–2000, Minoru Ishii)

(1960s Tokyo: Memories of a City of Trams That Ran Like Water, Akira Ikeda)

The result, as always, is a series of locations that are described as I found them — but also as best as I could imagine they looked and felt when Rain was only twenty.

That said, here and there I had to cheat a little, and this is the place to come clean. So: although Taro, the jazz club to which Rain takes Sayaka in Shinjuku’s Kabukichō, is long gone, its successor, Body & Soul, also opened by Kyoko Seki, is alive and well in Minami Aoyama. It’s one of Tokyo’s best and worth the trip:

http://www.bodyandsoul.co.jp

Also, as far as I know, the exterior of Kabaya Coffee in Yanaka is unchanged from at least 1938, when the shop opened in the tiny building it still occupies. The interior, however, has been updated. Accordingly, Rain’s description of the inside of the shop is a product only of my imagination. But I recommend the shop, the kind of kissaten—old-style coffeehouse — found only in Japan, and also recommend the entire Yanesen (Yanaka, Nezu, Sendagi) area where you’ll find it:

http://www.toothpicnations.co.uk/my-blog/?p=6778

And here’s some more information on the places that appear in the book…

Kamiya in Asakusa, where Rain meets with his case officer Sean McGraw after getting jumped in Ueno, is Tokyo’s oldest western-style bar. Big, boisterous, and unpretentious, with communal tables. If you’re a foreigner, you might be a bit of a novelty. Try the denki buran—electric brandy — or stick with the draft beer:

http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/drink/kamiya-bar-849180

http://www.kamiya-bar.com

A nice photo tour of contemporary Uguisudani, where Rain first meets Sayaka at one of the area’s numerous love hotels:

http://pingmag.jp/2013/03/25/welcome-to-uguisudani/

Taihō Chuuka Ryōri (Chinese Cuisine), the second place Rain meets McGraw:

http://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1316/A131602/13001670/

Lion Coffee in Shibuya, where Rain retrieves a critical file:

http://blog.uchujin.co.uk/2010/09/lion-cafe--tokyo’s-worst-“best-kept”-secret/

http://www.tokyofoodlife.com/?p=1829

A wonderful photo tour of the Arakawa line, Tokyo’s last surviving public tram:

http://ldersot.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=25699252&AlbumKey=mLnMtm

And another:

http://lifetoreset.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/aboard-toden-arakawa-one-of-tokyos-remaining-street-car/

An article on some of Tokyo’s best sentō. This is where I learned of Daikoku-yu, site of the electrocution hit (and a great place to visit for an afternoon soak):

http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/visit/sento-spectacular-tokyos-amazing-public-baths-199776

A nice article about a walk through Kita-Senju, home of Daikoku-yu sentō:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2011/01/09/environment/the-narrow-roads-of-senju/#.UdAtQhaHoUw

Café de l’Ambre, a classic Tokyo kissaten, and a good place for a dead drop, too:

http://www.tokyofoodlife.com/?p=323

Kabaya Coffee — another classic McGraw favors for dead-drop communications:

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/venue/8951/Kabaya-Coffee

A very cool photo blog of the Nakagin Capsule Tower:

http://www.ignant.de/2013/09/05/1972-by-noritaka-minami/

And a report from two western architects who managed to secure and live in one of the apartments there:

http://www.domusweb.it/content/domusweb/en/architecture/2013/05/29/the_metabolist_routine.html

Here are some amazing photos of student demonstrations in Tokyo, 1968–1971:

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2TYRYDMD2HVR

For inspiration about the vibe of Tokyo’s 1972 jazz scene, I loved this photograph of a young Terumasa Hino, along with a few other legends of jazz — Shinjuku Dug, 1968:

http://openers.jp/culture/tips_event/artdish0617.html

And Hino’s “Alone, Alone and Alone,” the piece he and his quartet perform at Taro in the book, was wonderful to write to. Gorgeous, haunting music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn-LQpFhGIY

More on the CIA’s long-standing financial role in Japanese politics:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html

The CIA underwriting foreign politicians is nothing new. Here’s a recent revelation, this one from Afghanistan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html

A brief history of the Lockheed bribery scandal in Japan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals#Japan

A brief history of the Church Committee. Senator Church said in 1975, “I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that [the National Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

Today, for any overseas behavior the U.S. government might want import to America, it has only to cite Senator Lindsey Graham, scholar, savior of the Constitution, and inventor of the profoundly Jeffersonian slogan “The homeland is the battlefield”:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/04/19/sen-lindsey-graham-boston-bombing-is-exhibit-a-of-why-the-homeland-is-the-battlefield/