Eroshima

Ian C. Nelson is Assistant Director of Libraries, University of
Saskatchewan; and Director, Saskatoon Gateway Plays, Regina Summer
Stage, and La Troupe du Jour.

Eroshima appears just as the film How to Make Love to a Negro brings the
author’s somewhat underground success to a new and expanded audience.
The expatriate Haitian remains true here to his peculiar telegraphic
style. Apocalyptic and erotic—as the title suggests—Eroshima
consciously couples black and yellow: “the volcanic sexuality of the
jungle versus the careful sensuality of Kyoto.” Laferriиre layers new
levels of myth onto the old one of Rita Hayworth and the H-bomb and then
punctuates this reality with his own mythology of cosmic significance:
“[John] Lennon died so a Negro could make it with a Japanese girl.”

Laferriиre, who lives part of the year in Montreal, is at the opposite
end of the spectrum from Michel Tremblay, whose characters are
magnetically held in their particular locale. The characters in Eroshima
are so international that the Montreal locale of three-quarters of the
book (15 chapters entitled “The Kama Sutra Zoo”) does not impress
one until well into chapter five, although the geography of the city is
quite clear. This part of the book is written in short numbered
paragraphs that take on the air of a Capote-like autobiography. The
remaining chapters bear equally evocative titles, such as “The Vague
Smile of a Chinese Cat” and “San Juan through the Keyhole.” This
novel seems destined to repeat the author’s success with his
established audience.