It feels like ages since I’ve read a Haruki Murakami book. It is especially with Murakami that I need to take long breathing spaces. To pause and have a breath of fresh air from all that strangeness.

And After Dark is definitely a strange one.

I love how it brings in all that happens in the wee hours of the night.

Just before midnight at a Denny’s somewhere in Tokyo, a young woman named Mari sits reading a book.

Before dawn breaks she will have met a young man who plays a trombone, a Chinese prostitute who has been beaten by her client, and a former wrestler turned love hotel manager.

Then there’s Eri, Mari’s sister, who has been asleep for some months. They’ve not seen her awake but she seems to be getting up and doing the bare minimum to be alive. Their doctor can’t do anything to help her.

What a fun and very weird read. I read this while in a beachside vacation rental in coastal Oregon with the sounds of waves crashing and lulling me to sleep.

I read this for Asian Lit Bingo – Translated Work by an Asian Author