Kuro Crow by Dave Maass. In 1999, author Dave Maass decided he was through with Phoenix, the flat, suburban sprawl where he was born and raised. He resolved to leave it for a place more, for lack of a better word, vertical. These three stories were inspired by his observations of Tokyo at the turn of the 21st Century as he learned to look up for the first time.
In All You Can Stomach, an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher on an overnight package trip to Seoul is derailed from his mission to gorge on Korean barbecue by his liberal companion and two too-adorable cult members.
Kuro Crow is a conversation between a drunk expat and a salaryman who speaks only the barest of English that weaves between cultural pretenses, Tokyo’s black scavengers and the disappearance of a young American hostess.
Primarily a spoken word piece, Whitecaps repeats the phrase “He kissed her because” in the voice of a desperate sailor who finds himself disgusted and inspired by his own voyeurism as he watches his mate dance with his “horse-faced sure thing” in a Shibuya night club.
What they’re saying
“It nails the sense of timesickness and placesickness you get in Asia–and the cultural lag and fog that comes with it. It also captures the sense of back-and-forth found in relationships, and how that domestic bickering creates something larger over time. Very nice.” — Douglas Coupland on All You Can Stomach.
About Dave Maass
Dave Maass is a staff writer for San Diego CityBeat and a contributor to Blastr.com. He’s also written for the Santa Fe Reporter, San Antonio Current, Tucson Weekly, The Stranger, Film.com, ManchesterOnline.co.uk and several now-defunct British publications. He can be spotted puttering around on a blue scooter with a small terrier strapped to his chest. He’s on Twitter @davemaass and blogs at maassive.com.
Available at
How do I read this story?
ePubs work with the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Nook. PDF’s will work on the Kindle. For Apple devices, simply drag the file to your iTunes library and click sync.
For the Kindle, email your story to your Kindle email address.
You can also read ePubs on your computer with a free Adobe Digital Editions download.
