Print List Price: | $19.95 |
Kindle Price: | $9.95 Save $10.00 (50%) |
Sold by: | Amazon.com Services LLC |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The Heron Catchers Kindle Edition
2024 International Rubery Book Awards Winner | 2023 American Writing Awards Finalist | 2023 Foreword Indies Awards Finalist | 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist
Joiner's second novel set in the fabled Kanazawa area is an intimate yet understated look at an American who seeks recovery after his marriage to a Japanese woman has failed.
After Nozomi abandons Sedge and their marriage, taking all their money and leaving him with a ceramics shop he can’t manage alone, her brother and his wife offer him a lifeline at their Japanese hot spring inn until he can get back on his feet. As he proceeds forward from this devastation in his life, he becomes involved with the wife of the man Nozomi ran off with as well as her stepson, a troubled 16-year-old whose jealousy and potential for violence contrasts with his interest in birds, origami, and the haiku of Matsuo Basho. What unfolds in the shadow of “the immortal mountain of cranes” will change their lives forever.
Set in Kanazawa and Yamanaka Onsen near the Sea of Japan, The Heron Catchers explores the importance of recognizing suffering both in others and in oneself, of being compassionate, and of trusting those who offer love in the shattering wake of loss.
The Heron Catchers is the second in a series of novels set in and around the Japanese city of Kanazawa.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherStone Bridge Press
- Publication dateNovember 21, 2023
- File size4486 KB
Customers who bought this item also bought
From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
2023 American Writing Awards Finalist | 2023 Foreword Indies Awards Finalist | 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist | 2024 International Rubery Book Awards Finalist
"Full of pastoral beauty…with characters who feel full and human, and whose dramas, in their quiet way, will leave a lasting impression."
—Kirkus Reviews
"A couple navigates their doomed marriage while living in Yamanaka Onsen, a beautiful yet claustrophobic town where gossip is rife and private lives are public knowledge."
—Iain Maloney, The Japan Times
"A multi-sided geometry of love and pain set in rural Ishikawa."
—DC Palter, Japonica
"[The Heron Catchers] is an emotional drama about the daily lives of ordinary people, but it also manages to be at times amoral, violent, and sensual, and it keeps the reader engaged…reminiscent of the works of Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, and other great writers of the Showa period.”
–Daiya Hashimoto, Editor for Booklogia
"An enjoyable look at life outside the major Japanese tourist haunts, and an examination of the issues faced by those who attempt to make a life for themselves there."
—Tony's Reading List
"The Heron Catchers, is at once a novel about a particular place, but is also a novel for us all, as our fates and feelings are intertwined with the natural world. Joiner's deeply felt and sensitive rendering of the inner lives of men and women in midlife, who are more affected by the place they live than they are aware, shifts in subtle waves, like the ocean that borders the town of Kanazawa where much of the novel is set. Closely observed and with care paid to emotional nuances, Joiner has written a book about adult life, and the endless striving we feel for meaningful connection."
—Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye and The Tree Doctor
"This slow burn of a novel sears itself into your consciousness with equal parts tension and poignancy. The Heron Catchers skillfully captures one blended, broken family's experience of growth and healing amidst the beauty and precariousness of Kanazawa's natural world."
—Leza Lowitz, author of In Search of the Sun: One Woman's Quest to Find Family in Japan
“Joiner reels the reader in with characteristic fine plotting, carefully crafted writing, vivid imagery and descriptions of life in the Japanese countryside, and a tone of authenticity belonging to a writer who knows and loves Japan. A riveting and worthy follow-up to Kanazawa.”
—Amy Chavez, The Widow, the Priest and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island
“David Joiner’s The Heron Catchers introduces us to the quiet green abundance of the Japanese mountains, the slow beauty of pottery, and the pain of love ended. We follow wounded characters, Sedge and Mariko, as they learn to heal after each has suffered from devastating betrayals. Like the herons they ultimately rescue from injuries incurred by natural and human calamities, they too strike out at those who seek to help them. Not unlike the wandering poet Matsuo Basho who steps into the frame of the story here and there, Joiner offers flashes of insights as sharp and beautiful as a heron taking flight. Readers will find in this elegiac, imaginative work, space for reflection and discovery.”
—Rebecca Copeland, author of The Kimono Tattoo, co-editor of Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch
"An intimate, rewarding novel of people linked by misfortune who search for redemption, wholeness, and purpose. Joiner evokes his protagonist’s inner world vividly among descriptions of the life, culture, festivities, and natural environment of a small hot-spring town near Kanazawa. The Heron Catchers is an engrossing sojourn in one of Japan’s most charming off-the-beaten-path destinations."
—Jeffrey Angles, translator of Hiromi Ito’s The Thorn Puller and author of My International Date Line (Winner of the Yomiuri Prize for Literature)
PRAISE FOR DAVID JOINER'S KANAZAWA
"Kanazawa is both a sensitive portrayal of the struggles of an international marriage and a paean to the city in which it is set."
—The Japan Times
"With its deliberate, expressive descriptions of the city and the mountains that surround it, Kanazawa is a character driven novel that illustrates the importance of communication and compromise."
—Dontaná McPherson-Joseph, Foreword Reviews
"He engages readers’ senses as a way of introducing his beautiful surroundings, describing sedate machiya homes, carafes of hot sake, aromas of temple incense, the prick of a snail shell on a lip. By keeping his sentences and structure simple, Joiner allows his decidedly Western prose to reflect a sense of Asian place without making Asia seem 'exotic.'
—Lit Hub
"Reflective and atmospheric, Kanazawa is a story for sitting with. The drama and conflict are experienced not as grand explosions of intense emotion but as a quiet gnawing from within that is far less easy to escape. Joiner’s patient attention to the interiority of his characters and a strong sense of place create a moving portrayal of the messiness of relationships and the ways that all the things we hope to bury in the past stay with us."
—Reid Bartholomew, World Literature Today
"Filled with lush greenery, formidable mountains, historic castles, and a vibrant local community... Kanazawa casts a shimmering layer of magical novelty around the countryside that has too long been reserved for prominent cities ever since Japan’s industrialization in the early 20th century."—Ella Kelleher, Asia Media International
"A graceful novel of a graceful city. David Joiner’s Kanazawa interweaves four love affairs, echoing the fantastical writings of the early 20th century writer Izumi Kyoka. At the story’s heart lies the enigmatic bond between Emmitt’s wife’s parents, with a secret only revealed in the novel’s dramatic climax. The other three love affairs, with their own enigmas, are Emmitt’s own - for his wife Mirai, for his adoptive city of Kanazawa, and for his muse Kyoka."
—Alex Kerr, author of Lost Japan and Finding the Heart Sutra
"An intriguing story of a Japanese family worthy of the best of Japanese literature.”
—Roger Pulvers, author of Liv
"Kanazawa drips with a sense of place, the setting much more than just a back drop to the action; Joiner shows that there are plenty of stories taking place outside the vortex of Tokyo. Tense, moving, and subtly gripping, Kanazawa is a welcome addition to the books-about-Japan shelf."
—Iain Maloney, author of The Only Gaijin in the Village
"The novel is poignant, elegant and meditative, with a cathartic climax, a dramatic payoff after a steady buildup. This is achieved fantastically, without a single dull moment. The straightforward language, the rich atmosphere, the natural flow of the characters’ thoughts, words, and movements all drive the story forward organically. Joiner has achieved an incredible feat in making a story whose lifeforce is art seem so effortless and devoid of artifice."
—My Murmuring Bones
About the Author
David Joiner made his first trip to Japan in 1991―a five-month study program in Hokkaido―and three years later moved for the first of seven times to Vietnam. In Japan, where he has also moved numerous times, he has called Sapporo, Akita, Fukui, Tokyo, and most recently the western Japanese city of Kanazawa home.
David Joiner's writing has appeared in literary journals and elsewhere, including Echoes: Writers in Kyoto 2017, The Brooklyn Rail, Phoebe Journal, The Ontario Review, and The Madison Review. His first novel, Lotusland, set in contemporary Vietnam, was published in 2015 by Guernica Editions. His second novel, Kanazawa, was published by Stone Bridge Press in 2022 and was named as a Foreword Reviews Indie Finalist for multicultural novels.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From Chapter 3:
"Hegurajima was one of her and Sedge’s favorite places in Japan, full of rare birds stopping over on their migrations from China, Russia, and Southeast Asia. They had most recently visited last year, as the island’s spring migration was winding down. With summer bird species settling in, they had been excited to spot Oriental cuckoos, dollarbirds, streaked shearwaters, Kamchatka leaf warblers, and even a few red-necked phalaropes. Nozomi had told him afterward that the trip was one of the highlights of their travels together. A few weeks later she left him."
Product details
- ASIN : B0CKXVCT4F
- Publisher : Stone Bridge Press (November 21, 2023)
- Publication date : November 21, 2023
- Language : English
- File size : 4486 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 266 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 1611720818
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,867,053 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,684 in General Japan Travel Guides
- #23,635 in Travel (Kindle Store)
- #48,586 in Literary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
David Joiner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1991 he made his first trip to Japan - a five-month study program in Sapporo – and three years later moved for the first of seven times to Vietnam. In Vietnam he has lived in Bien Hoa, Hanoi, HCMC, and Mui Ne; in Japan he has called Sapporo, Akita, Fukui, Tokyo, and Kanazawa home at different times.
His novels include the 2024 International Rubery Book Award-winning The Heron Catchers (Stone Bridge Press, 2023), Kanazawa (Stone Bridge Press, 2022), and Lotusland (Guernica Editions, 2015 & Painted Veil Press, 2025).
Customer reviews
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star5 star66%18%16%0%0%66%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star4 star66%18%16%0%0%18%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star3 star66%18%16%0%0%16%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star2 star66%18%16%0%0%0%
- 5 star4 star3 star2 star1 star1 star66%18%16%0%0%0%
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2024As in most of the other positive reviews of David Joiner’s new book, “The Heron Catchers”, I appreciated the complex plot and characters that make this book flow enjoyably. But I was particularly amazed at Mr. Joiner’s extensive knowledge of Japanese culture and physical artifacts that sustain the story as it unfolds. This also includes his love for birds and how he describes them, so that the herons become the organizing metaphor for the plot line.
Mr. Joiner is also a master of authentic and plausible dialogue, giving us a better appreciation of the characters’ motivations and emotions so that we the readers better understand the complex plot.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2024I am a fan of David Joiner’s previous novels and style of writing. It is smooth, emotional, and colorful while also being strong in its messages. This story is about lives seemingly falling apart and the arduous road to becoming whole again. Not just for the main character but for all characters, truly. I look forward to David’s next book.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2023The Heron Catchers is the third novel set in the far East by American writer David Joiner and the second focusing on the city of Kanazawa, Japan. Majoring in Japanese Studies in college and thereafter living for many years in different parts of Vietnam and Japan, Mr. Joiner knows of what he writes. This is the first and only book of his that I have read. Thank you to David Joiner, Stone Bridge Press, and NetGalley for providing me an advanced copy of the book for my reading pleasure. My review is wholly VOLUNTARY.
I found the subject and premise of The Heron Catchers interesting and intriguing, but I found it difficult to read and to enjoy. Although it begins with the heartache of two couples drawn asunder by the infidelities of their respective spouses, the remaining spouses develop a deeply mutual, loving, caring and emotionally healthy relationship. The problem with their newfound relationship, however, lies in the emotionally disturbed teenage son left behind by his cheating father and in the care of the abandoned wife, the boy’s stepmother. The boy’s father had left him and his stepmother twice before, but when he was around, he physically abused his son. After their most recent abandonment, the boy demonstrated inappropriate sexual feelings toward his stepmother, and when the new man entered their life, the boy was aggressively jealous.
I found that too much of the book is focused on the boy and his relationship with his stepmother and her new man. Further, the boy’s repeated and escalating aggressions are predictable. I also found that the new man, an American caucasian, was much too passive and forgiving—not only of the boy but also of his cheating wife and her brother and sister in law, who also treated him poorly and unfairly.
The book is liberally peppered with Japanese words, making the reading difficult and slow. It required me to look up various terms frequently, hindering my enjoyment and comprehension. On the other hand, Mr. Joiner does a wonderful job of painting a beautiful picture of Kanazawa and its surroundings and of some of Japan’s history, culture and traditions. A less liberal spattering of Japanese would have been preferable for me.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2024Like Kanazawa, David Joiner’s previous award-winning novel, The Heron Catchers is set in Ishikawa Prefecture, mostly in the town of Yamanaka Onsen where he once lived.
The novel begins in Kenrokuen, the famed garden in Kanazawa, one of the three great gardens of Japan, where Sedge, a Japanese-speaking American, is meeting Mariko, the wife of the man Sedge’s own wife has run away with. Though we feel Sedge’s lingering pain from the abandonment by his wife, we’re immediately intrigued by this unusual meeting.
While waiting for Mariko, Sedge witnesses a heron being attacked by a boar and breaking its wing. A bird watcher himself, Sedge comes to the bird’s aid just as Mariko arrives. She shows him her scars from rescuing herons herself.
Everyone in this novel, it turns out, is deeply scarred and not just by the sharp beaks of the local birds. Although it’s been months since his wife, Nozomi, has left, Sedge has barely started to recover from the loss.
Not only did she abandon him, she emptied their bank accounts, leaving Sedge with little to live on. Together, they’d run a shop selling local Kutani ware pottery, but without her, he is unable to manage and has to close the shop. Without any way to contact her, or any idea where she went, he can’t even initiate divorce proceedings and move on with his life.
Sedge soon leaves Kanazawa for the small hot springs town of Yamanaka Onsen where his brother-in-law runs a ryokan. Taking pity on him for his wife’s indiscretions, he invites Sedge to stay at the ryokan until he can get back on his feet, asking him in return to teach English to the staff.
Mariko works at the ryokan, too, but obligated to take care of Riku, her emotionally scarred 16-year-old stepson, she’s unable to stay after work for classes in the evenings. Instead, she asks Sedge to come to her home. Despite a warning from his brother-in-law and the gossip that is sure to cause, Sedge agrees to visit.
Over time, the pair develop a tenuous relationship, unsure what will happen if their spouses ever return. Mariko’s stepson feels threatened by the presence of Sedge in their home, with the possibility of a violent outburst always a threat. Though they don’t have much else in common beyond deep scars of betrayal, all three share a love of herons.
How Sedge, Mariko, and Riku navigate this complex relationship that’s in constant danger of collapse is the heart of this entrancing novel. The characters feel real, and though we grieve with them, the story is never maudlin.
More than a simple love triangle, what develops is a multi-sided geometry of love and pain enveloping Sedge and Mariko, their former spouses, Mariko’s stepson, and the brother-in-law and his wife who employ both Sedge and Mariko at their ryokan.
One of the few novels written in English set in rural Japan, we get to see life in Ishikawa, a world away from Tokyo and Kyoto. An American there, even one who speaks Japanese, stands out, eyes constantly following him. This is a world Joiner knows intimately, the descriptions of town life dripping with authenticity.
Here in the rice fields and hot springs towns on the Sea of Japan coast, herons and humans go about their separate lives that when they collide, leave deep scars on both sides. But with loving care, broken wings can heal as can broken hearts, and both can learn to fly once more.
Top reviews from other countries
- Piers RowlandsonReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars A story of loss and love, suffering and redemption.
On the face of it, it would seem unlikely that an American from Ohio would write a novel in the Japanese style. But David Joiner has done just that and it is an undoubted success. I enjoyed every word from the first to the last page. In some parts, it reminded me of Snow Country and in others Before the Coffee Gets Cold. There is a way that emotions are discussed that is Japanese and so different from how English people think. There is the usual smattering of Japanese words (which fortunately Kindle can usually translate) that reminds one that Japan is so different from Europe that there is no good translation for even everyday things like a traditional inn (ryokan) or a mat (tatami). The novel tells the story of the breakdown of two marriages when Nozomi the wife of American Sedge runs away with the celebrated potter Koichi, the husband of Mariko. Sedge and Mariko meet at her request. Both are hurt, confused and desperate to understand why this has happened. In their efforts to rescue an injured heron, they find common ground. As their relationship moves on, herons assume a central symbolic role. A huge emotional barrier to their relationship is Koichi’s son from a relationship before he met Mariko but who she feels bound to shelter and support through thick and thin despite his difficult temperament. Sedge at first reluctant, gets drawn into this tangled web. The psychological drama that ensues is compelling and utterly absorbing.
Strongly recommended.
- Christopher GreenReviewed in Japan on March 27, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars A life-affirming, superbly crafted read
The Heron Catchers is set in Kanazawa and Yamanaka Onsen, a nearby hot spring resort beautifully evoked by the writer. It is a life-affirming read, superbly crafted, exploring the wonder and meanings of the life of its characters, despite the adversity they encounter on the way.
Indeed, the story begins with the protagonist, Sedge, struggling to come to terms with his wife having run away, taking all his money with her. We soon meet Mariko, the wife of the man Sedge’s wife ran away with, and later Riku, that man’s teenage son from a previous relationship who lives with Mariko. Compassion is one of the themes running through the book, and I was impressed with how the writer shows Sedge, Mariko and Riku to be growing emotionally as the story develops.
And then there are the herons, appearing several times from first chapter to last, in memorable scenes described with great skill and clarity. I very much look forward to reading David Joiner's next novel.