Lala Pipo

"This sleazy novel is not recommendable for ladies and gentlemen." So reads the jacket of the Japanese edition of this collection of six dark, interrelated, tragicomic chapters dealing with themes of desire, inadequacy, and failure, using the underbelly of sex as its canvas. As misheard by one of the characters, " a lot of people," is "Lala Pipo." Lala Pipois an ingenious tapestry of absurdity, whose cast of unlikable characters cross the line of good taste thateven those who have crossed the line cannot help but notice. Each act pushes the envelope past the one preceding it. It's like an episode ofSeinfelddirected by Bob Guccione, all the story elements cleverly weaving together, taking the reader from shock to gut-busting hilarity with each tale. The main difference: these losers are X-rated.

Hideo Okuda was born in 1959. His first novel was published in 1998 after he worked as a magazine editor, planner, and copywriter. He is now one of the most popular authors of entertainment novels in Japan, known for his comical portrayals of people at all levels of society.

In 2002, he won the Oyabu Haruhiko Award for hardboiled and adventure novels for JAMA (Annoyance), and in 2004, he won the Naoki Prize (Japanese equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) for Kuchu Buranko (The Flying Trapeze).