What a strange little book. It feels Japanese, if that makes sense. It’s just out of reach and so palatably real, throbbing with the pulse of the desires that drive us through life, itching with the dissatisfaction of a constant tickle in the centre of our spine… the revealing of the story takes place over the course of six hours between midnight and dawn, but it is decades long and centuries deep. 

 

The people Mari meets during these six hours walking the streets of Japan after hours will change her thinking and her relationship with her sister and her life. And here is a sad look at the effect mental illness has on the people it touches beyond the mind it inflicts, the lives of the people who love the afflicted. 

 

At once profound and painful and pertinent.