Louise Painchaud, a lanky lusty Albertan is hired as an English language coach by the School of Heartful Purity in Japan, an institution dedicated to staging kitschy Western musicals with all-girl casts. This is the Japan of the eighties, flush with money, wild with possibility, and afflicted with a severe case of self-worship-expressed most vividly in the country's adoration of a slim golden pop star named Oro. The gaijin giantess ends up playing Eurydice to the tiny Oro's Orpheus in a love affair that scandalizes the nation. A sexy, funny, irreverent work of fiction, Realia, explores how pop culture becomes contemporary myth, and how ancient myth still feeds the heart of pop culture.