CRAWLING AT NIGHT
Nani Power
Manny is feeling randy The book jacket informs us, in the kind of bio all publicists dream of, that before she wrote this, her debut novel, Nani Power was a caterer in Manhattan, a sandwich seller on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, a chef in a Japanese restaurant, and a nanny to a family living in a trailer. All of these experiences seem relevant when taking into account
Crawling At Night but one title is missing; sensualist.
Two discordant protagonists paint the narrative alive in this nihilistic and self-destructive tale of loss and decay. Ito is a Japanese sushi chef with a dark past who runs to New York City to escape his demons, but, as Walden once said, "you cannot run from your past. Wherever you may go, the giant goes with you." Mariane is a raging alcoholic with a similar attachment to her past failings who loses her job when her boss attempts, and fails, to rape her. Ito discovers that he cannot save Mariane from herself, and her past, where she longs to reclaim the daughter she gave up, and therefore he cannot forgive himself for abandoning his violent son.
Told largely in flashbacks blended with the present bitterness, Crawling At Night seethes with sexuality and desire, utilizing it as a means of temporary escape until reality comes crashing back in. Unfortunately, without the sex, and the naked woman on the cover, this story would have lost me in the first five pages. I particularly enjoyed the passages where Ito recalls his time in Japan spent in a whorehouse where he fell in love with a girl named Xiu-xiu while his wife was being eaten alive by cancer at home alone. It was there that I found Nani's real power coming through, in the subtle sifting of sex and death, which is what, at its core, all great literature is about.
