SOURCE: A review of East Is East, in West Coast Review of Books, Vol. 15, No. 6, November-December, 1990, p. 23.

In the following review of East Is East, Hymes asserts that Boyle's characterization and plotting serve short stories better than novels but notes that his wit prevents the book from becoming tiresome.

T. Coraghessan Boyle is a writer who's hot, relatively new in town, and very good. He has a glib wit and a superb attention to detail. He is his best, though, when his talents are geared toward his short stories. His novels can have the feel of elongation and a certain weightlessness, as though they have been stretched a little too thin and then fattened with hot air, like French pastry or rhetoric. His fourth novel, East Is East, has that feel.

The story concerns Hiro Tanaka, a Japanese seaman who has had to jump ship off the coast...