Far from Everywhere

From the bestselling, International Booker-shortlisted author of Strange Weather in Tokyo, this polyphonic story of love and friendship on the outskirts of Tokyo takes readers into a neighborhood like any other, yet full of unforgettable characters—by turns funny, wise, and heartrending.

Take the train from central Tokyo and head east. In twenty minutes, hop off and here you are: far from anywhere, but right in the heart of everything. Here, you’ll meet a widowed fishmonger who invites his dead wife’s former lover to move in, a fortune teller who helps a friend down on his luck, a young woman who learns her mother-in-law’s secret over a late night snack of tea and rice crackers, and, at the local restaurant, the cook and the server whose on/off relationship might be back on.

From one of Japan’s most celebrated writers, this charming, character-rich meander through a small, seemingly average community becomes a quiet, profound meditation on connection and attachment, loneliness and loss, life and all its ephemera.
 

• "Kawakami’s style traffics in brevity, giving us images distilled to their core, sentences that go directly to the heart, and the narrative command to deliver entire lives within one sweeping breath . . . The surreal turns into something powerful in Kawakami’s hands, all the more devastating because it escapes our full understanding." 
  Brenda Peynado, The New York Times Book Review
• “Kawakami’s characters tread the shimmering line between the absurd and hyperreal, vivid as Japanese block prints." 
  Hamilton Cain, O, The Oprah Magazine
• "No one writes like Hiromi Kawakami. Her characters love, lose, grow, and fall, while Kawakami paints murals of their lives with the deftest of hands. The depth and complexity of these stories is simply beyond…we couldn't be luckier to get to read it." 
  Bryan Washington
• “There’s a sense of inevitability to each of Kawakami’s sentences and stories, even when what’s inevitable is the fading of humanity . . . the work of a singular imagination and a book that will reward multiple readings." 
  Molly Templeton, Esquire
• “[Kawakami] finds humor and warmth in the puzzles of existence and extinction." 
  Hilary Leichter, The New York Times Book Review