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December 6: A Novel
by Martin Cruz Smith
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2002-09-30)
ISBN: 0684872536
EAN: 9780684872537
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Hardcover: 352 pages
Release Date: 2002-09-30
SKU: BX001-080313004
Condition: Used: Very Good Firs
Comments: Assumed First, 1 on # line. Black mark on top edge (remainder mark) o/wise very minor wear, near new, not pricecut. Pgs crisp, clean, tight, unmarked.
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Editorial Reviews
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Amazon.com Review
Ever wonder how things might have been different for Rick Blaine, the ostensibly selfish nightclub owner from Casablanca, had he lived in Japan during the 1940s, rather than Morocco? Martin Cruz Smith offers a reasonable scenario in December 6. This slickly plotted, exotically atmospheric thriller opens in Tokyo just a few days before bombs start raining on Pearl Harbor. There we meet roguish Harry Niles, the culturally conflicted son of religious missionaries and owner of the Happy Paris, a club known for its enigmatic jukebox jockey, Michiko, who also happens to be Harry's mistress. With war rumors rampant, Harry--distrusted by both U.S. and Japanese authorities--"was skipping town. Any sane person would." He has a seat waiting on what may be the final flight out to Hong Kong, and plans to escape from there to the States with a British diplomat's wife. But first, there are business and personal affairs to settle, not the least of which is an oil-tank con he's been running on the Imperial Navy--a desperate strategy to stop his beloved Japan from entering into self-destructive conflict with America. Harry also has to duck a sword-wielding military fanatic, who's seeking revenge for a long-ago incident that cost him honor, and bid sayonara to Michiko, a woman as scary as she is seductive. (Oh, well, at least they'll always have the Happy Paris.) This book memorably re-creates wartime Tokyo, with its pet beetles and mincing geishas and naive belief that "victory lies in a faith in victory." Yet it's Harry Niles--cynical on top, sentimental beneath--who really carries December 6, a novel as brilliantly convoluted and captivating as any Smith (Gorky Park , Havana Bay ) has yet concocted. --J. Kingston Pierce
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Product Description
From Martin Cruz Smith, author of Gorky Park and Havana Bay, comes another audacious novel of exotic locales, intimate intrigues and the mysteries of the human heart: December 6. Set in the crazed, nationalistic Tokyo of late 1941, December 6 explores the coming world war through the other end of history's prism -- a prism held here by an unforgettable rogue and lover, Harry Niles. In many ways, Niles should be as American as apple pie: raised by missionary parents, taught to respect his elders and be an honorable and upright Christian citizen dreaming of the good life on the sun-blessed shores of California. But Niles is also Japanese: reared in the aesthetics of Shinto and educated in the dance halls and backroom poker gatherings of Tokyo's shady underworld to steal, trick and run for his life. As a gaijin, a foreigner -- especially one with a gift for the artful scam -- he draws suspicion and disfavor from Japanese police. This potent mixture of stiff tradition and intrigue -- not to mention his brazen love affair with a Japanese mistress who would rather kill Harry than lose him -- fills Harry's final days in Tokyo with suspense and fear. Who is he really working for? Is he a spy? For America? For the emperor? Now, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Harry himself must decide where his true allegiances lie. Suspenseful, exciting and replete with the detailed research Martin Cruz Smith brings to all his novels, December 6 is a triumph of imagination, history and storytelling melded into a magnificent whole.
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Customer Reviews
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Think 'Casablanca' but set in Japan... good read
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-08-01
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I really like Smith's writing because he makes the characters come alive. Unlike many writers whose characters seem to be mere necessities to move a plot along, Smith gives you a sense that these are real people. That is what draws me to his books and keeps me turning the page. This book, I couldn't put down.
In December 6, you have a character like Bogart in Casablanca except the setting is the "Happy Paris" bar in Tokyo. Harry Niles is the anti-hero mostly out for himself, but just can't seem to turn away from people who need his help, even if it means he puts himself in jeopardy. Very interesting character and totally believable due to Smith's writing skill. If you like a well told story filled with interesting characters being tossed about in very tumultous circumstances, you'll like this book.
Also, being from Japan, and between cultures myself, I thought Smith did a great job of getting the feel of what it is like to grow up in a different culture, speak its language, understand and relate to its culture as your own, yet never be able to be considered part of that culture because of your looks or name. For someone who hasn't lived that life, (I presume), Smith had really good insights. That made this book especially interesting to me.
My only regret was that the ending was rather ambiguous. After piquing my interest to know how things would turn out, I felt there was no final clear resolution. Not so typical of Smith to do that, and as someone who likes closure at the end of a good read, I was somewhat disappointed. Still, it was a wonderful ride.
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Ok I'm a little lost
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-01-08
To sum up my impression of Dec 6, I found it hard to follow, yet informative. It kept my interest even though I felt like I was missing vast chunks of plot, descriptions, etc. There were many situations that to me seemed implausible yet thought if I wasn't missing so much plot that perhaps they would make sense. Despite not feeling like I was getting the entire thing, the characters seemed very interesting, which means to me how really interesting they would be if I was smart enough to get the whole plot.
Hard to follow. It seemed like the events, spare the flashbacks to childhood were occurring in one day. This seemed really hard to believe. My mind kept trying to squish everything into one day and I ran into all kinds of logical hurdles, thinking, "this is this time, but what time did they bomb Pearl Harbor? and what about the international date line?" And then it was Dec 8 in Japan, but we think of it as Dec 7. Dec 6, was that Japan time or our time? Does the story last over 2 days? That would make a lot more sense to me for all those things in the book to occur over 2 rather than 1 day. In that case they should have named it "Dec 6 and 7 in the Japanese Time Zone" but that may have seemed a little clunky, but it would have alleviated a lot of confusion for me.
Suffice it to say I found the time logistics challenging and this contributed to my overall distraction and inability to really focus on the author's amazing storytelling/descriptive abilities.
Informative. We generally get the western view point - "ATTACKED!" "A day that will live in infamy" etc. And though some cynics say we drew Japan into the war they never were able to clearly explain to me, or I wasn't able to understand, how we forced a country to attack us. This narrative gives some explanation. An island, no natural resources, being starved of oil and other things by embargo - add some Yamoto spirit and - whammo! -we have a world war on our hands.
The strange world of honor. It's something we hear about in the west but to see this description - honor on the first person level, a compassionate inside story, made the Japanese character so much more understandable. When he described the celebration after their "victory" at Pearl Harbor I can imagine similar celebrations in the US. Patriotic pride, 4th of July Parades. These things tend to make me feel nervous.
Kept my interest. Based on the above. Harry being so smart I wondered what he had up his sleeve. However I didn't know if I would have been so driven to complete the book if it wasn't assigned as part of a book club. The club kept me going when otherwise I may have given up.
Some implausibility. How is it that a lone American, a swindler, gets access to the oil records of these large corporations and dupes the Japanese navy into thinking that there were large reserves of oil hidden in Hawaii. I don't know. It may have been explained but because of the confusion I was having with the international date line I may have missed it.
Interesting characters. Kiko the art teacher, Ishigami as evil incarnate, the force of destruction no one can beat, like a gay Jason (from Friday the 13th) who happens to be a samurai colonel. And, of course Michiko, the infatuated fatalistic lover who would like nothing more than to a murder suicide.
Colorful descriptions. I particularly enjoyed the ambassador's party when Harry was a kid, playing tug of war, beating up the big guy, climbing the fence, I could just see the fire flies. I felt like there were a lot of great description that I probably missed because I was so confused by the logistics of the plot. I could benefit by a re-read. But I probably won't.
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"The gaijin is always 'It.'"
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-11-19
10 out of 11 customers found this reveiw helpful
The days leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor form the basis of this thriller focused on an American who lived in Japan from birth to his late teens, then returned ten years later--after the Nanking Massacre but before the United States entered the war. The son of missionaries who often left him in the care of others while they traveled, Harry Niles, as an adolescent, always considered himself more Japanese than American, though he was often tormented, and sometimes even tortured, by his Japanese peers for being different. When he embarrasses his parents by flouting their strict morality, he is hauled back to the United States in disgrace.
In the ensuing decade at "home," Harry learns how to manipulate others, becoming successful professionally by bending, if not ignoring, the rules. When he returns to Japan, he is distrusted by his fellow countrymen, while, at the same time, equally distrusted by his Japanese counterparts. Owning a Tokyo nightclub and living with Michiko, a woman whose self-serving nature matches his own, Harry reconnects with some of his acquaintances from high school, some of whom are now in the Japanese armed forces, and finds himself dealing with powerful yakuza figures, Nazi businessmen, and the confused diplomatic community. When he becomes privy to information which suggests an attack on Pearl Harbor is imminent, Harry tries to prevent war while protecting his own neck.
Filled with realistic details which reflect a great deal of research into the political and cultural background of the period, the novel uses Harry's split loyalties to show Japan's belief that its desire to control the Pacific is no different from England's control of its colonies during the Empire. Showing the Japanese point of view, the author provides action scenes reflecting life in Tokyo for people ranging from Prime Minister Tojo to geishas and prostitutes, and the international colony of businessmen. Scenes of everyday life ring true, not just in terms of physical details but in terms of the cultural milieu of the characters.
Harry is not an admirable character, either to the Americans or to the Japanese, but he, unlike many of the people with whom he associates, makes no pretenses of being anything other than who and what he is. Suspense develops relative to Harry's predicaments, a necessary structural device since readers already know the historical outcome. The final confrontation between Harry and members of the Japanese military, however, is less realistic than one would expect and the introduction of samurai values into the scene seems gratuitous and even trite, an easy way out of a difficult problem of plot. Still, the novel is exciting, well-researched, and imaginative, another one of Cruz Smith's carefully written historical thrillers. n Mary Whipple
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a little bit of unlikely hindsight
Rating (3)
Date: 2007-10-25
Poor Harry is neither a fish or a chicken, but halfway between. And the world of December 6 1941 is deeply in need of a strong swimmer. Really a very well written and researched novel by the master that would have gotten him lynched as late as 1950 for the politics. Harry is the social chameleon ( shape shifter) and gambler whose bet ( debts) all come due at once.
An unexpected clairvoyance in the main Japanese characters leads to an unlikely surprise ending.
More of an entertaining historical fantasy than anything that could actually have taken place.Man In A High Castle
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A decent read
Rating (3)
Date: 2007-06-28
This is the first book of Martin Cruz Smith that I have read and overall I would say that the book was pretty good. The sequences of flashbacks was a little too much for me and at times I almost forgot what time period we were in.
The story was very well done and made you question the main characters character many times over. Even at this point I wonder if he was a good guy or just another thief.
I will read another Smith book again.
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