Big in Japan

We plan to create a website for the book as well as myspace and facebook pages for the author. Gammarino was the guitarist in prog rock band Clockwork in the 1990s, so we'll reconnect him to fans of the band via myspace. We plan to launch the book in Philadelphia, home to the fictional band Agenbite as well as the real band Clockwork. We also have events planned in Hawaii and Seattle. We'll create galleys and solicit reviews nationwide as well as in Japan. Gammarino has published many pieces of short fiction, but this is his first novel. We plan to enter him into as many new novelist competitions as possible. Advice from Consortium on which ones to target would be much appreciated. We also plan to promote his book through ads and announcements in publications where he has published. The complete list, which didn't fit in the author's bio, is here: The New York Tyrant, The Adirondack Review, Word Riot, Elimae, Square One, The Apple Valley Review, Lily Lit Review, Nimble, Sliptongue We also plan to create a study guide for using both Goodbye Madame Butterfly and Big in Japan in university courses. This will appear on both goodbyemadamebutterfly.com and the Big in Japan website. Finally, we plan to target the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, which sends hundreds of young Americans to Japan each year and has been operating for 23 years. Many cities have large and active alumni groups that would be interested in the book.

A ruthless yet sympathetic novel of the Western male imagination vis-a-vis the Japanese woman."From Susie Wong to Madame Butterfly to Miss Saigon: you might think that we've had enough of American men adventuring, scoring, and coming undone in the Far East. But you'd be wrong. Gammarino's Big in Japan is a shrewd and lively book, sharp-eyed and unsparing in its account of a young American's good and very bad moments overseas. The writing is wired and the ultimate judgement is merciless. It's seductive and it's devastating." -PF Kluge, author of Eddie and the Cruisers and Gone Tomorrow While playing to lackluster crowds in their hometown of Philadelphia, progressive rock band Agenbite clings to the comforting half-truth that they're doing better in Japan. When their manager agrees to send them over on a shoestring tour, though, they're swiftly forced to give up their illusions and return stateside. All but one of them, that is. Brain Tedesco, the band's obsessive-compulsive nerve center, has fallen in love with a part-time sex worker - the first woman ever to have touched him - and his illusions have only just begun. What ensues is a gritty coming-of-age tale in which Brain, intent on achieving some kind of transcendence, paradoxically (or not so paradoxically) descends into the Hungry Ghost realm of Tokyo's underworld. He becomes, in effect, a gaki - the insatiable creature of Buddhist cosmology - and must learn how to live even as his outsize desires threaten to engulf him. By turns compassionate and ruthless, erotic and grotesque, riotously serious and deadly funny, Big in Japan is a sparking, gut-wrenching, face-melting debut novel.