Another chiaroscuro novel from Mitchell. Instead of multiple viewpoints and multiple narratives we have what might be multiple dreams or fantasies, visions of modern Japan through the mind and experiences of a boy searching for his father, haunted by his sister and bothered by his mother. Eiji Miyake is established early on as a slightly unreliable narrator, with a preference for elaborate flights of fancy over concrete actions. Nonetheless, he returns to shabby, knotty, tricky reality at the end of each initial flight, so when the story progresses through some strange and horrible adventures and misadventures, all propelled by his search for his father, the reader is left with a nagging suspicion about the nature of Eiji's reality. Then it no longer seems to matter, as at worst we are reading a made-up story by a made-up character in a made-up book. number9dream charms and horrifies and breaks the heart and heals it a little as one dream proceeds from the next.