Contemporary fiction

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World

by Laura Imai Messina

Tokyo radio host Yui lost both her mother and young daughter in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and has struggled to speak about her grief. She learns of a disconnected telephone in a garden where mourners send words to the dead on the wind. At the phone booth she meets Takeshi, a widowed doctor raising a daughter who has stopped speaking, and their repeated journeys slowly form a new kind of family. Quiet and tender, this Japanese-set novel suits readers who appreciate meditations on mourning, real places transformed through fiction, patient relationships, and stories that make room for continuing bonds as well as survival.