Who knows why we started drinking Buron. At the time it seemed normal, the only real choice for the next year of our lives which had been entangled since middle school. Could've been we wanted to have fun before university. Could've been we were bored. Could've been peer pressure but we'd never own up to that. Whatever it was, I liked to think we had a worthwhile reason for drinking the stuff. It was cough medicine, after all, and anyone silly enough to drink cough medicine must've had a reason hidden in some deep, dark place inside.
So begins Liam Langan's coming of age novel set in Tokyo. Part fiction, part autobiographical, Neon Night follows alter-ego Jim Leary, an English Japanese mix navigating his last year of high school in a city he calls home but has never really been a part of. Far removed from the idea of Tokyo as some metropolis with proud, polite residents, Neon Night is a glimpse into a side of Japan that rarely gets talked about. One of loneliness, indifference, rage, and everything else that comes to the fore when the rising sun finally sets and neon takes over the night.