Izumi Suzuki is able to capture the seedy underbelly of the Japanese underground music scene of the 70s — complete with all the sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll that you can imagine in her, newly translated into English, novel Set My Heart on Fire.

This is my first time reading anything by Izumi Suzuki, in fact, I’d never heard about her until now. But I simply couldn’t resist reading Set My Heart on Fire with its promise of detailing the turbulent life of a woman in her 20s in the bar and club scenes of 1970s Tokyo. The idea of struggling through your youth, with iconic music as the background, while trying to fill the void with anything from drugs and alcohol, to sex with musicians? It sounded just up my alley. 

I’m not sure I loved this book, maybe I would’ve devoured it whole when I was in my own 20s more than I would now, but I was definitely unable to put it down. I’m not, as mentioned, familiar with Izumi Suzuki, so when I finished the book I took the liberty to read up on her — or as much as I could, there’s very little information available in english! — and it seems that Set My Heart on Fire is a sort of autofiction novel that is semi based on her own life? 

If that is the case, I do think it bumps the rating of it up a lot more for me. Seeing as it’s an exploration of her own youth, told in thirteen vignettes that stretches through her 20s and 30s. It makes it feel a lot more impactful in a way? A lot more raw and painful to read. Either way, whether autobiographical, autofiction or just plain fiction, Set My Heart on Fire is a story of a woman feeling lost in her youth and into adulthood. The feeling of losing out on life, when settling for less, and the wish to have it all back — to be young and dumb again, to not have made the mistakes you did because you didn’t think you could get better? But then again, to also not be caught in the past so you’re unable to live the future you could have.

Izumi Suzuki, despite this being written in the 80s and taking place in the 70s, still captures the worries and fears of any young person even today in 2024. The translator, Helen O’Horan, did an exceptional job bringing those feelings to life in English and it’s fantastic that the publisher is allowing for the rest of us to be able to read Suzuki’s works in English. I’m definitely curious to read her other work, which is more akin to science fiction, but which Verso has also made available in English! 

TL;DR this book captures all the emotions of being young and dumb, making mistakes, and sitting with those feelings when you’re older. Izumi Suzuki is such an interesting person, I can’t help but want to read more by her! 

/// Thank you to Verso Books for the ARC!