{"product_id":"standard-deviations-karl-taro-greenfeld-9780812992694","title":"Standard Deviations: Growing Up and Coming Down in the New Asia","description":"\"I was twenty-three and I had set off for Asia to become a writer, intrigued by lurid tales of booms, busts, drugs, sex, violence, magic. There was a wicked sorcery in Asia, in the economic profligacy of the early nineties, in the way financiers and businessmen took a rapidly wiring and developing continent and looted billions, like a titanic parlor trick converting all that wealth into abandoned office complexes and half-completed shopping malls. . . . I wanted it all--the money, the sex, the drugs. And to this day I believe that if I am honest with myself, despite all I have learned the hard way over the past decade, I would still want it all again, the fucking and the getting loaded and the scheming to get enough money to pay for that life.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the late 1980s, not long out of college, Karl Taro Greenfeld found himself stranded in New York, a failed writer before his career had even begun. His Jewish-American father angrily cut off support; his Japanese mother suggested he go to Japan to teach English. He did, accepting a job with no more promise than he'd had before. But he stayed in Asia for the next several years, working his way through a series of journalistic posts, watching a culture erupt before his eyes and facing his own demons. Through a series of vividly imagistic stories that range from the rigidly journalistic to the deeply intimate, Standard Deviations recounts Greenfeld's experiences--both professional and personal--during Asia's wild ride at the end of the twentieth century. Whether drinking Japanese cough syrup to get high with other Western expatriates, visiting a free-sex ashram in Bombay, or watching a former high school pal self-destruct as an equity analyst in Jakarta, Greenfeld evokes the spirit of a continent in flux at an explosive \"bubble\" economy's end--and a man confronting his own identity and aspirations. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRaunchy, insightful, eloquent and moving, Standard Deviations is an uncompromising work of cultural observation and self-exploration.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Karl Taro Greenfeld\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0812992695\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780812992694\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Villard Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/02\/2002\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 272\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.90lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.98h x 6.10w x 0.73d","brand":"Karl Taro Greenfeld","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47135251857663,"sku":"9780812992694","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_db559074-07d9-4e89-a469-43e49a870bf8.jpg?v=1755009588","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/standard-deviations-karl-taro-greenfeld-9780812992694","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}