THE FETISHIST by Katherine Min

Kyoko, a singer in a punk rock band, wants to avenge the death of her mother, Emi, whose suicide stemmed from being rejected by a fellow violinist named Daniel.  Kyoko’s attempt at murdering Daniel comically fails, but she and her boyfriend do succeed in kidnapping Daniel while, ironically, he is in the midst of committing his own suicide.  Another of Daniel’s former Asian lovers, Alma, has had to give up her musical career due to MS, and she decides to kill herself on the same day as Daniel’s abduction.  A friend finds her in a coma, and her memories while comatose fill a number of pages in the book.  The title character, apparently, is Daniel, as he seems to follow Alma’s adage, “Once Asian, never again Caucasian,” meaning that all of his lovers after Alma will also be Asian.  For the record, though, his short-lived marriage is to a Caucasian woman.  In any case, Daniel is a cad who reflects on his many transgressions toward women while he is locked in Kyoko’s basement and enduring a steady diet of bologna on white bread, which could be a metaphor, but I’m not sure about that.  My favorite character is Kornell, Kyoko’s boyfriend and drummer in her band, who is literally her partner in crime.  His commitment to Kyoko’s plans for Daniel seems solid, but this is not his fight, and I kept wondering when or if he was going to save Kyoko from herself.  Basically, almost everyone in this book is a musician, and there are dozens of references to classical music pieces here.  I would love to see a list of what composition was played when, where, and by whom.