A young Japanese seaman jumps ship and washes ashore on a barrier island in this 'marvelous and] razor-edged' (Cosmopolitan) novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Tortilla Curtain. 'A hilarious black farce about racial stereotypes, selfish dreams, and ambitions run hopelessly amok . . . It's a pastoral version of The Bonfire of the Vanities.'--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Japanese seaman Hiro Tanaka, inspired by dreams of the City of Brotherly Love and trained in the ways of the samurai, jumps ship off the coast of Georgia and swims into Tupelo Island, a nest of rabid rednecks, genteel ladies, descendants of slaves, and the denizens of an artists' colony. His arrival is not an auspicious one--he terrifies one islander literally to death. Fleeing the outraged survivors of his victim, he finds refuge in the cabin of Ruth Dershowitz, an aspiring novelist and resident of the artists' colony. Ruth, a young woman of ambiguous talent and ambivalent ambition, is