The Fairley Brothers in Japan

De: David Starkey

Narrado por: David Starkey

From the author of Poor Ghost comes a poignant road trip novel following two middle-aged brothers, Chris and Andy Fairley, as they attempt an unlikely musical comeback in Japan.

Chris and Andy Fairley couldn’t be more opposite—Chris, an uptight, ever-pessimist, and Andy, a go-with-the-flow hopeful. Their glory days seemed long behind them since their moderate success as a folk-rock duo and their relationship with each other fizzled out in the mid-1980s. But when their hit song is unexpectedly chosen for a Japanese car commercial, the men are given one last shot to revive their fame and friendship.

They embark on a tour across Japan, but soon find their venues are far from glamorous: a wedding reception where they're asked to play their hit on repeat, a flower farm gift shop, a windy sculpture park, and a restaurant where customers catch their own fish. As tensions between the brothers rise and a strange reporter begins following them all around the country, the men aren’t sure if the band or their relationship will survive.

With echoes of Andrew Sean Greer’s Less, The Fairley Brothers in Japan is a gently comic exploration of aging, family, and belonging. It’s a tale of two brothers, not just hitting the road, but rediscovering themselves along the way.

©2025 David Starkey (P)2025 Keylight Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Starkey deftly balances nostalgia, humor, and heartbreak throughout, providing authentic-seeming details about touring Japan while presenting a realistic story of two brothers coming to a better mutual understanding with age. A wise and smartly told story of reunion." —Kirkus

"As you read David Starkey’s Poor Ghost, you’ll be thinking deeply about how we got from Boston to QAnon, from Casey Kasem to Kyle Rittenhouse: what it all means to you, and what it says about us. But you won’t notice you’re thinking, because you’ll be laughing too hard as Stacey the retired librarian knocks out knife-wielding Álvaro de Campos with a jug of rosé to keep him from killing you in your own backyard while other Halloween-costumed fans of the aging rock band whose plane crashed there a while back livestream the fracas. By the time you realize how involved you are in the deepening mystery, it will be too late to get out.” —H. L. Hix, author of Legible Heavens and The Death of H. L. Hix

"Poor Ghost opens with a bang and a fire that chars a shattered Cessna and a towering pine tree. It ends with another bang from an exploding brushfire that consumes a massive 70 acres...In between, this highly original novel—unlike any I’ve ever read—shifts among second-person revelations, text exchanges, rock magazine interviews, news articles, and government reports, exploring the ghosts of those departed and those about to be. There’s an invasion of groupies, lunatic murderers, a missing dog, and the mystery of what caused the plane crash. David Starkey makes it all meaningful, bringing the dead to life and offering rich, inventive entertainment." —Walter Cummins, author of Where We Live and Seeking Authenticity