The story focuses on Takano's exploration and discovery of "Western" culture, exemplified in the meetings of the "club" which he forms with his French-speaking friends.

Miller details conventional middle-class Tokyo life with such intricacy that it is something of a relief when larger events outside Yuji's carefully constructed self-image forcefully intrude and reveal the irony of his pose.

In a review for Pop Matters, David Pullar stated the novel was "clever, responsible and just plain well-written"; that it is an "imaginative and profound reflection on Japanese identity in the early days of the Second World War"; stating of the novel as a whole "Miller’s depiction of a Japanese world that largely passed with the American occupation is vivid and enticing" and awarding it a score of eight out of ten.

[3] Reviewing for The Daily Telegraph, Helen Brown felt the novel was "convincingly Japanese", stating "there are moments of beauty, truth and irony" and "Miller places his words and plot developments carefully".

[4] Peter Carty, reviewing for The Independent, stated "Miller's trademark is silken prose which gleams with acutely rendered detail" and that "when this stylistic fluency is brought to bear on Yuji, the result is a character so well realised as to engage all of our sympathies".