The story of Mami Suzuki struck a chord with Simon Rowe’s readers. A middle-aged woman moonlighting at night as a detective in Japan in his short story collection Pearl City in 2020, had all the potential of grabbing the attention of crime fiction lovers. The Australia-born and Japan-based author soon turned the short story into a full-length novel — Mami Suzuki Private Eye and obliged his fans, who still want more. Simon, who has lived in Japan for more than two decades and has won numerous awards for his short fiction and screenplays, including Best Indie Book Award in 2021 and Best Asian Screenplay Contest in 2013, loved the vibe that Calcutta offered. “I am very tired but this city has impressed me with its colour, its noise and liveliness. Everybody is friendly and I am definitely coming back to Calcutta,” said an affable Rowe who was in the city for his maiden book tour at Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival earlier this year.
An adventure seeker by heart, Simon is also into writing travelogues and he talks about flipping the narratives of renowned fiction detective novelists like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, exploring the issues plaguing modern-day Japan and more.
Simon, this is your first novel and Mami Suzuki already had a fan following. Tell us about the decision to take her out from the short story format to a novel.
Previously, I self-published two collections of short stories and the first story in the second collection, the Pearl City was very popular among female readers because it told the story of a female private eye in Japan; a middle-aged woman with a young child and an older mother to take care of. She works in a hotel in the day and at nighttime, she moonlights as a private detective. It’s set in Kobe, Japan, a great place to set a story. I didn’t mean to write a mystery, it’s the readers who insisted I write more on her and it eventually transformed into my debut novel.
Given that the readers wanted more of Mami Suzuki, did this demand create any sort of pressure on you?
Well, there was no pressure that way because I find writing enjoyable and my passion for writing grew as I started writing on her. There was a strict deadline from the publishers and this was during Covid, so I don’t know how I did it, but I guess I did a good job.
Let’s talk about Mami Suzuki and what makes her so intriguing and popular.
My motivation has always been to write a triumph over adversity story. People are tired of reading stories of death, loss, and all things bad. There aren’t many positive stories out there. So, to make the triumph bigger, I chose a single mother. She overcomes many obstacles to triumph and that triumph is the big bang finish. Now, why a female private eye? The inspiration came from a leaflet in my mailbox one day advertising the service of a female private investigator with a speciality in cheating husbands. So that was the starting point. My wife is a middle-aged Japanese woman and since I also teach, I am always surrounded by middle-aged and elderly women so it’s not difficult to know how Japanese women think and there are a lot more single mothers. It’s tough to make ends meet in Japan for them. Coming back to the story, later, I interviewed two private investigators in Tokyo and they told me there aren’t many but a female investigator is preferred more because they can go unnoticed easily. I strongly believe that women have a greater intuitive power, they can read people better. The book also is kind of a travel book intertwined with mystery and brings the Japanese culture to the fore.
You started off by making a living as a travel writer and photographer. Tell us about being the foreign eye in Japan and the book.
I’ve got three things that I built the story on — 27 years in Japan, travel writing and interviewing and researching Japanese private investigators. So, I stand behind my book confidently.
You met two authors during your session at the literary festival — Anuja Chauhan and Patrick Lyons. How was the experience?
It was amazing. All of us are writing in the same genre — crime thriller — using different techniques and with different perspectives. Patrick’s, story is set in Australia, Anuja is a very good speaker and her story is set in India, and mine in Japan. I enjoyed listening to them.
You were a travel writer. What was it about the crime thriller that got on you?
This is more of a slow burn and not about blood and gore and dead bodies. It deals with the human condition in modern-day Japan and modern-day Japan has a lot of problems just like modern-day India. We have unique things like karoshi, which means death by overwork in Japanese. People work so hard and are under pressure that they kill themselves or fall over. Then there is hikikomori, which is a social withdrawal symptom, majorly among younger people. And finally, jouhatsu, which means evaporation, is another phenomenon in Japan where people just disappear by themselves; they run away as they cannot handle the pressure of work and family and this book deals with some of those things. Gender inequality is also a thing that the book discusses.
Tell us about your literary influences and if you are exploring any Japanese author.
Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, they were the kings of hard-boiled crime detective stories with very stereotyped tough guys with their women. I have tried to flip that upside down. But in terms of influence, Chandler’s writing is economical and super witty, so I have been influenced by his writing. I have been reading a female Japanese writer, Kaoru Takamura, and she has written a fantastic two-volume story called Lady Joker. I chanced upon her much after writing my book, and found out that she has something similar.
You have an itch for adventure. You have a black belt in iaido and a passion for sea kayaking. Do these activities help you unwind and clearing your mind?
So living in Japan is a pressure cooker lifestyle like there’s so much pressure to work to meet deadlines. People mainly let off steam by drinking or some kind of activity. For me, it’s sea kayaking. I love the sea, both the Japan Sea and the inland sea of Japan. That’s pure happiness so that helps me to empty my mind, release my stress and take notes of new ideas that help me to write new stories.
Coming back to Mami Suzuki. Will there be more books on her?
Yeah, people are like we want more and I’m like you get more. So I already have the next two books mapped out.