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Country of Origin: A Novel Paperback – April 17, 2005

by Don Lee (Author)
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
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A dazzling debut novel by the prize-winning author of Yellow, set in the unique and exotic nightworld of Tokyo.

In this "poignant story of prejudice, betrayal and the search for identity" (Newsweek International), the trials and tribulations of these three remarkable characters are "at turns trenchantly funny and heartbreakingly sad" (Publishers Weekly). "[An] elegant and haunting debut" (Entertainment Weekly), Country of Origin is a "swirl of action, a whirl of love and sex and race and politics, local and international" (Chicago Tribune)―a "quiet literary triumph" (Booklist)

Lisa Countryman is a woman of complex origins. Half-Japanese, adopted by African American parents, she returns to Tokyo, ostensibly to research her thesis on Japan's "sad, brutal reign of conformity." When she vanishes, Tom Hurley, who is half-Korean and half-white, is assigned to her case at the American embassy, as is local cop Kenzo Ota, who is 100 percent Japanese but deemed an outsider.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    315 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    April 17, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    5.6 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    039332706X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393327069
  8. See all details
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The chilling story of the abduction of two teenagers, their escape, and the dark secrets that, years later, bring them back to the scene of the crime. | Learn more

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Touching, wide-ranging, often funny--and never less than compelling."

About the Author

Don Lee is the author of the novels The Collective, Wrack and Ruin, and Country of Origin, and the story collection Yellow. He has received an American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, an O. Henry Award, and a Pushcart Prize. He teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Temple University and splits his time between Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (April 17, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 315 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 039332706X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393327069
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.6 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

About the author

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Don Lee

Don Lee

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Don Lee's latest book is the story collection The Partition. He is also the author of the collection Yellow and the novels Country of Origin, Wrack and Ruin, The Collective, and Lonesome Lies Before Us. He has received an American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. He lives in Baltimore County with his wife, the writer Jane Delury, and teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
28 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

John Fowler
4.0 out of 5 stars I like it
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2014
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My wife reports they are all good.
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Donal Heffernan
5.0 out of 5 stars One of best reads for literary-mystery fiction
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2004
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COUNTRY OF ORIGIIN was a great read: a beautifully written story with considerable color of place and intriguing tension turns. I'm assigning it for my fiction writing class, it's that good. A rare find: one of those packages you get from Amazon.com that offer you a stimulating week--no stop reading once I started.
10 people found this helpful
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A. J Smith
3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Read, Interesting, But No Page Turner
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2004
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I bought this book after listening to a piece about it on NPR. While clearly a proven writer, Don Lee falls short of creating spellbinding drama. The book serves as an interesting vehicle for Lee to comment on Japanese society in particular and our whole societal hangups about race, ethnicity and nationality in general. Certainly, the book will cause you to reflect on these issues. Lee succeeds in conveying a real sense of 1980 Japanese culture (I presume, based upon his personal experience and research, it is objectively accurate); however, I found his character arcs weak, his story disjointed, and his dramatic conflict lacking. The book never achieves a page turning crescendo, there is no climax, and the denouement is a fizzle. Maybe it's just too cerebral for me. Please pass me the Grisham.
4 people found this helpful
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Thomas Woods
4.0 out of 5 stars Really Enjoyed it.
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2020
I enjoyed the story and reading the book. Don's not Steinbeck or Dos Passos but it's a fun story.
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T. Burrows
5.0 out of 5 stars First rate literary thriller about love and identity in Tokyo
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2010
This was a wonderfully written literary thriller by a Korean-American author. He seems to come at it from the world of literary, as opposed to genre, writing. This definitely straddles the line between mystery and literature, and altho it contains elements of both, it ends up being an original and difficult-to-categorize creation. There is virtually no violence or crime, but the plot turns on a young woman's disappearance and the efforts of a detective to track her down. It is too full of unusual characters, humor, and social observation to be a typical mystery, and it is too addictive and enjoyable to be a ponderous work of literature. It works also as a discussion of race and identity, since most of the main characters come from some sort of mixed background, whether culturally or racially, and find themselves in a land in which this is not a prized quality.

Country of Origin most certainly is a novel of Japanese life from an outsider's perspective, and the picture it paints is not very flattering. Here is a Japan that is colorful, bizarre, and eccentric, a world of sex clubs, quirky cultural simulacrums, awkward, chauvinistic men, and manipulative women. There are cafes where the waitresses do not wear panties, odd love hotels, huge fake indoor beaches with rolling waves, and quiet, super-expensive little restaurants. It is a world that is both stuffily traditional and openly hedonistic. Lee sets his story in 1981, perhaps in part to parry any assertion that it is supposed to represent the Japan of the 2000s, but it is hard to miss this author's strong feelings about and fascination with the country.

The plot concerns the intrigues of a number of characters, mostly centered around the U.S. embassy. A young woman named Lisa Countryman has disappeared, and her sister has contacted the authorities and urged them to look for her. A callow, amoral young Korean-American Foreign Service officer named Tom Hurley begins looking into it, and on the Japanese side, a shy, dorky police detective named Kenzo Ota is assigned the case. I very much liked the structure of the novel, as it then begins to skip back and forth between the past (Lisa's misadventures) and the present (the investigation into her disappearance, and the personal lives of Hurley and Ota). The book is packed with noir-ready, bitchy female characters - sexy, smart-mouthed babes who are more than willing to cause a little trouble. The unpleasant character of Lisa is portrayed with a fair amount of sympathy and exploration of her past.

Tom gets into a very steamy affair with Julia Tinsley, the sharp-tongued wife of a Japanese-American undercover CIA officer. To say that this move is ill-advised is a massive understatement, but Tom goes all out and falls madly in love. Detective Ota gets involved with Miss Saotome, a young woman who is his landlady, but he is so clueless about women and romance that their friendship and courtship are mostly comical. He enlists her support in researching the world of sex clubs, mistakenly thinking that she is a sex worker of some kind. Much of the story is told with both a dry wit and a dash of sentiment that is ultimately very appealing. The ending is both realistic and surprising. This was a very enjoyable and intriguing book (as well as an enjoyable book of intrigue). Give it a try.
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Grey Wolffe
4.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous discussion of mixed race in homogenous Japan plus a great mystery
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2006
Lisa Countryman is the adopted asian/black daughter of a black US Serviceman and his wife. She was brought back to the States at the age of four. She has no memory of her life there or her mother. After the loss of her adoptive parents she decides to return to Japan to look for her birth mother. She does so under the pretext of doing her PhD thesis on the Japanese sex trade.

She becomes a hostess in a gaijan (foreigner) bar that's frequented by upper management japanese. Her job is to entertain only, she is not allowed to go on a dohan (date) with the clients, though she is allowed to accept gifts from them. Her job is very much like that of a true geisha, to entertain her clients but not to have sex with them; unlike the american idea of a geisha, she is not now nor ever was a prostitute.

In Japan, the most racially homogenous country in the world, to be non-japanese and especially to be of mixed race (and especially to be part black) is considered a mark that cannot be overcome. You are not a citizen, cannot be a citizen and therefore are condemned to the lowest level of respect and economic means.

It is 1980, and Tom Hurley (who is half-korean) is working at the US embassy in Tokyo when he is asked by Lisa Countryman's sister to find out where she is so that she can settle some legal issues the two sisters have. Tom is having an affair with the wife of Vincent Kitamaru/David Saito/Bob Sasaki, who is a CIA operative at the embassy. Kitamaru is part of a group who go to Lisa's bar and call themselves Mojo, Larry and Curley.

Tom Hurley has met with a Tokyo detective named Kenzo Ota, who is part of the 'window squad' (a group that has been exiled to window desks because they have nothing else to do but look out the window all day). Kenzo becomes intrigued by Lisa and her disappearance, and even though he's told to lay off by his superiors, he continues to plug away. What he finds in the end makes this a detective story. But what he finds out on the way is a great discussion of the cultural difficulties/racial slurs/ everyday indignities that non-full blooded japanese suffer from in their own country.
One person found this helpful
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Philip D. Griggs
1.0 out of 5 stars Prejudice in print.
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2013
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One of the worst books I have struggled to read in many, many years. Got all the way through it simply because I thought there must be SOMETHING at the end to clean up the mess.

There wasn't.
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Tinman
2.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't get into it.
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2013
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Rarely do I bail out on a book. Even if I don't like it at first, I still give it a chance to gather momentum and redeem itself. This one didn't redeem itself. I bailed.
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