5.0
The Love We Share Without Knowing
By Christopher BarzakPublisher Description
In this haunting, richly woven novel of modern life in Japan, the author of the acclaimed debut One for Sorrow explores the ties that bind humanity across the deepest divides. Here is a Murakamiesque jewel box of intertwined narratives in which the lives of several strangers are gently linked through love, loss, and fate.
On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man’s life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives—and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village a disaffected American teenager stranded in a strange land discovers compassion after an encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo a girl named Love learns the deepest lessons about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong.
From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection—uncovering the love we share without knowing.
Exquisitely perceptive and deeply affecting, Barzak’s artful storytelling deftly illuminates the inner lives of those attempting to find—or lose—themselves in an often incomprehensible world.
On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man’s life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives—and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village a disaffected American teenager stranded in a strange land discovers compassion after an encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo a girl named Love learns the deepest lessons about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong.
From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection—uncovering the love we share without knowing.
Exquisitely perceptive and deeply affecting, Barzak’s artful storytelling deftly illuminates the inner lives of those attempting to find—or lose—themselves in an often incomprehensible world.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities3 Reviews
5.0
Catherine Wood
Created over 10 years agoShare
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Lisa Gray
Created over 14 years agoShare
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“"We live in a world of illusion. I'm telling you this up front because I don't want you thinking this story is going to have a happy ending. It won't make any sense out of sadness. It won't redeem humanity in even a small sort of way."
Such begins Christopher Barzak's second novel, and it could describe his philosophy on writing. He seems obsessed with death and dead characters, imagining a world that few of us even want to think about. Add to that the fact that these are short stories, connected by characters, and I'm not a big fan of short stories.
So you'd think it would be a bust, right? I could NOT put this book down - it's a laundry-ignoring, call in sick kinda book. His first book "One for Sorrow" was also very strange, and yet I could not stop reading. I like this one oh, so much better, though.
Set in Japan, in a rural area outside of Tokyo, we get a series of stories. Some character from a previous story always shows up in the next one in the cleverest way. The writing is haunting, beautiful. A travel guide to Japan, a coming of age story, and ultimately a story about life and death. Do read it.”
Mark Gerrits
Created over 14 years agoShare
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About Christopher Barzak
After two years as an English teacher in Japan, Christopher Barzak returned to his home state of Ohio, where he teaches writing at Youngstown State University. His stories have appeared in the anthologies Trampoline, The Coyote Road, Salon Fantastique, Interfictions, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, as well as in the publications Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Realms of Fantasy, and Nerve, among others. He is also the author of One for Sorrow, his debut novel.
Other books by Christopher Barzak
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