The Fairley Brothers in Japan

(Hardback, New edition)

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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 venues: 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.

Reviews

Praise for David Starkey's Poor Ghost

"As you read David Starkeys Poor Ghost, youll 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 wont notice youre thinking, because youll be laughing too hard as Stacey the retired librarian knocks out knife-wielding lvaro de Campos with a jug of ros 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 novelunlike any Ive ever readshifts 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. Theres 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

"Poor Ghost is an examination of how we deal with loss and change and a tribute to the best band that never was, set in the confusing time of COVID lockdown. I appreciate David Starkeys improvisations on rock history, but I am most touched by his portrayal of the slow dance of grief." Glen Phillips, Singer/Songwriter (Toad the Wet Sprocket)

"From its riveting opening through the wonderfully imaginative unfolding of its narrative, Poor Ghost is a lively hopscotch of a novel, compelling, deep and powerful."T.C. Boyle, author of Blue Skies

"Poor Ghost is straight-up beautiful. The daily chaos of the twenty-first century collides with the narrator's dark and private emptiness, and somehow Starkey does all of this without a trace of irony or cynicism. I'll say it again: beautiful. I bloody loved it." Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist's Handbook and Mother Howl

"What makes a band great Dying in a fiery plane crash Legions of fans who just wont let them go Poor Ghost is all this and more. [The book is] a story of deep human connections, of music and love and loss. From the first blast of power chords to its heart-wrenching finale, this is the great rock and roll novel youve been waiting for. Glenn Dixon, author of Bootleg Stardust

An inventive and ethereal mystery Poor Ghost is whip-smart and authentic about how we manufacture sentimentality in our artificial, internet lives. The church of the weird has rarely been written about with more pathos and indeed gallows humor. Craig Campbell, Louder Than War

David Starkey is a very clever and talented writer the more I read about the music of the band Poor Ghost, the more I kept wishing that they had been an actual real band.Plethora of Pop

Author Bio

David Starkey is the author of the widely acclaimed novel, Poor Ghost, published by Keylight in 2024. In addition to writing fiction, he has published twelve books of poetry, most recently The Moon Shall Not Give Her Light (Vine Leaves Press, 2025) and You, Caravaggio (Pine Row Press, 2024). The Founding Director of the Creative Writing Program at Santa Barbara City College and the Publisher and Co-editor of Gunpowder Press, he is also the author of Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief (4^th edition, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2021), which for many years has been one of the most popular introductory textbooks for college creative writing courses. With drummer Eric Prothero, he records and performs as Falstaff Riley. You can learn more about David and his work at davidstarkey.net.