The Kawai Scrolls

I, John Fox, of Rolfe, Iowa, aspiring anthropologist, am liberated from the chains of Podunk academia and American mores. Japan, here I come. His Hopi princess bride has left him for the head of the philosophy department and his PhD thesis is stalled; what is left for an Iowa farm boy to do but to board a slow boat to Yokohama? John Fox leaves the academic desert of New Mexico for Japan, in search of fame and inspiration among the Ainu, the white aborigines of Hokkaido. While his adventures as an American innocent abroad take many a romantic and political turn, John discovers, as the Ainu believe, that everything is god . . . and bears.