In Broken Wigwag

After eight years in a cramped apartment in lower Manhattan, Japanese expatriate Satomi--the heroine of this ennui-producing debut--pines for a more prosperous, fulfilling life but can't imagine what that life might be. In place of a plot, Asano plugs in one aimless, episodic chapter after another: Satomi shops, goes to work as a waitress, loses her cat and hangs out with her friend Kira. An odd assortment of misspellings, malapropisms and grammatical errors seems designed to convey the isolation of a stranger in a strange land, but they are so common and random-looking that Asano's already primitive prose suffers as a result. While a few scenes communicate something interesting about New York's 20-something Japanese community, the only truly affecting section of this brief book is the climax, when Kira is dumped by her American beau Stephen, whom Satomi finds vaguely attractive. Without a sympathetic protagonist or much of a story, this fictional diary of a hipster makes for a slow, empty read. (Oct.)