‘Getting Oriented’:

Journeys In Japan

By Nancy K. Crevier

“I was like a baby duck being imprinted” is how Newtown author Wally Wood describes his very first impression of Japan. En route to Korea in 1955, he disembarked the troop ship there, and fell head over heels for the country that was more foreign than anything he had ever imagined. “It kept me coming back,” said Mr Wood.

Now readers can sample some of the aura of Japan woven into his newly published novel, Getting Oriented, A Novel About Japan. Self-published by Mr Wood through Create Space Publication, a subsidiary of Amazon, Mr Wood has created characters that he believes readers will find sympathetic, as they work through the baggage that they (literally and figuratively) bring with them on a tour of Japan.

Getting Oriented is Mr Wood’s first published work of fiction, although he is the author of 19 general interest business books, most of which he authored as a ghost writer for executives, corporate heads, and consultants. He is a business writer and journalist, and served as a trade magazine editor for 25 years. He earned his BA from Columbia University in philosophy, with a minor in oriental studies (where he learned to read, write, and speak Japanese) after a 24 year lag in producing his thesis, and his MA in creative writing from City College in New York in 1998. In 1992 he took part in an immersion language program in Japan, to improve his conversational Japanese. A member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and SCORE (Service Corps Of Retired Executives), he has taught young adult creative writing through C.H. Booth Library, and has also led creative writing programs at prisons in the region.

Readers of Getting Oriented will learn a lot about the country of Japan and its people and culture, said Mr Wood, but he emphasized that it is not a travel book.

“All of the places are real, but all of the characters are imaginary, composites of people I have come across,” he said. As a mature writer, Mr Wood has been able to draw on his many life experiences to bring a richness to the characters that populate his book and the situations in which they find themselves.

Getting Oriented is the story of Phil Fletcher, a downsized corporate businessman who has recently lost his wife in a tragic accident. Convinced by an old college friend to utilize his knowledge of Japan gained working for Army intelligence, Fletcher finds himself leading a disparate group of travelers across Japan, each on his or her own journey, as he begins to emerge from a period of depression and self-pity. His journey is one with which Mr Wood believes readers of a certain age will certainly relate. It asks the question, said Mr Wood, of “How can you lead a full life when the props you have depended upon — your job and your spouse — are kicked out from under you?”

The book is not one meant to put the reader through the emotional wringer, however.

“It is not ‘genre’ or ‘literary’ fiction,” explained Mr Wood. “I think it is more mainstream. It is a good story that I hope still provokes thought,” he said. There is a touch of mystery within the novel, although, said Mr Wood, “My wife, who belongs to a local mystery book group, tells me that you can’t have a mystery without a body. There is no body in Getting Oriented, but this is one of the threads that runs through the book that I hope keeps the reader going.”

Getting Oriented has been kicking around for nearly seven years, in one form or another, said Mr Wood, so he is particularly excited to have brought the novel to publication. “Getting it out in the world has been amazing,” he said. “Things start happening that you couldn’t anticipate and that’s been great,” he added.

Developing the characters — among them a drunk, a correctional officer, a Southern belle, and one character dying of cancer, in addition to Fletcher — has been a feat that he feels he has finally mastered, as well, with Getting Oriented. Three earlier novels remain unpublished, and looking back (“It is amazing what you learn by teaching writing,” he said) Mr Wood realized that he had put too much of himself into his earlier characters, and not allowed the characters to grow on their own.

With Getting Oriented, Mr Wood believes he has found the balance between similarities he shares with his main character, such as being a tour guide in Japan for a California-based tour company and his intimate knowledge of the country, and the motivations that are purely those of the Fletcher character.

“It is always hard to develop a good character,” said Mr Wood. “You are stirring up all the sediment in your subconscious to create someone that other people will be interested in. You have to care about your characters, and the reader has to care about the characters, too,” he said.

Mr Wood continues to ghost write business books, and is currently working on what he pegged “another ensemble story.” This one is a mystery, he hinted, complete with a body.

Mr Wood will join other area authors as part of an author talk panel at Mahopac Public Library, 668 Route Six in Mahopac, N.Y., on Thursday, October 6, from 5:30 to 8 pm. He will also host a free talk, book signing, and meet and greet at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street in Newtown, on Wednesday, October 26, at 7 pm. The talk will include a pictorial “tour” of Japan. “Whether you read the book first, or come to the talk first, the pictures will make for a richer experience,” promised Mr Wood.

Mr Wood can assist book clubs in procuring multiple copies of Getting Oriented, and is happy to speak at book club meetings. Contact him at info@woodwriters.com.

“It is really interesting hearing  people’s reactions to my book,” he said. “The input is invaluable to me as a writer, especially from people I don’t know. So far, it’s been all fun,” said Mr Wood of his venture into the world of fiction publication.

Phil Fletcher struggles with the personal dilemmas of the tourists in his charge and his own personal crises as he explores Japan, from the Kyoto temples to the Tokyo skyscrapers. It is a novel Mr Wood hopes will spark an interest in Japan and set fire to his own career as a novelist.

Getting Oriented, A Novel About Japan is available at amazon.com, bn.com, as a Kindle edition, or through Baker & Taylor book distributors.