People from My Neighborhood
Stories
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4.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Nominated for the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award
From the author of the internationally bestselling Strange Weather in Tokyo, a collection of interlinking stories that masterfully blend the mundane and the mythical—"fairy tales in the best Brothers Grimm tradition: naïf, magical, and frequently veering into the macabre" (Financial Times).
A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps doll's brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever heard of. These are some of the inhabitants of People from My Neighborhood.
In their lives, details of the local and everyday—the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color and shape of the roof of the tax office—slip into accounts of duels, prophetic dreams, revolutions, and visitations from ghosts and gods. In twenty-six "palm of the hand" stories—fictions small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand and brief enough to allow for dipping in and out—Hiromi Kawakami creates a universe ruled by mystery and transformation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kawakami's magical and engaging collection (after Strange Weather in Tokyo) pulls the reader into a small Japanese community via stories told by unnamed narrators. In "The Secret," the narrator's life changes upon meeting a child who never ages despite the two spending 30 years together. "Grandma" follows a neighbor who plays cards with a child narrator and asks the child for money, until something causes their dynamic to change. "The Office" features a gazebo where a man waits for "customers." The narrator brings a friend named Kanae to the gazebo, who is rude to the man, though they later discover the man has a surprising talent. In "Brains," Kanae encourages the narrator to tickle her older sister, a form of torture, because her sister's nearly blue eyes make her look like a stranger, despite her Japanese features. In "The Hachirō Lottery," a group of families take turns caring for a neighborhood child who has 14 siblings. Everyone fortifies themselves against an alarming gravity-defying event in "Weightlessness," though Kanae convinces the narrator to sneak out of school to experience the phenomenon. Throughout, Kawakami effectively anchors the stories' uncanny moments with everyday details. This thought-provoking, offbeat collection is worth a look.
