Product Description

Middle-aged, jaded and divorced, TV scriptwriter Harada returns one night to the dilapidated downtown district of Tokyo where he grew up. There, at the theatre, he meets a likable man who looks exactly like his long-dead father. And so begins Harada's ordeal, as he's thrust into a reality where his parents appear to be alive at the exact age they had been when they had died so many years before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74957 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
"'A cerebral and haunting ghost story... Highly recommended.' David Mitchell 'A memorably uncanny tapestry... The powerful mood of Strangers lingers long after its graceful, downbeat ending has passed.' Guardian 'A disconcerting, yet deeply satisfying novel: a wonderful study of grief and isolation, a moving expression of our longing for things we have lost and are unable to have again.' Daily Mail 'Quickly paced, intelligent and haunting.' Bret Easton Ellis"

Guardian
'Memorably uncanny … the powerful mood of Strangers lingers well after its graceful, downbeat ending has passed.'

Daily Telegraph
'Restrained and moving … what might have been a simple ghost story evolves into a psychologically acute portrait.'

Customer Reviews

Victorian gothic comes to modern Japan
Although this is ostensibly a ghost story, it fits the genre of mystery more easily than the genre of horror.

The narrator, Harada, is a recently divorced TV script writer, coming to terms with his loneliness. He is deadpan and analytical in his delivery. Some of the phrasing does seem a little staccatto - and I see that another reviewer found the sentences rather complicated. I agree. It reminded me, if anything, of Sheridan LeFanu's victorian gothic mysteries - written at a time where ghosts were to be investigated and understood rather than feared.

The storyline is certainly odd: Harada meets up with his long dead parents and visits them for tea. Although he knows it to be wrong, his curiosity drives him on. Meanwhile, the rest of his life and relationships rapidly take a turn for the worse. The novel (novella?) perhaps suffers from brevity. With more space, the characters might have been enlarged a little, and perhaps the narrator made a little more likable; a little warmer. Having said that, the story does move on apace and this takes attention away from the lack of empathy with Harada.

The cover talks of a bizarre twist. I'm not sure it is really a twist - it is pretty obvious from early on that something is not quite right. One is left guessing what exactly it is that is out of kilter and I suppose the revelation does have some element of surprise. It's hardly a twist on the scale of The Crying Game, though.

Overall, the book was a good read. It managed to hold my interest but without being exceptional. I don't think I gained much insight into either Japan or the supernatural but at the same time, it was as good a way as any of passing a Sunday afternoon.

Haunted
This book is simply beautiful. It's a pretty weird novel, but the prose is spare and perfectly used - a real modern masterpiece, it has a subtlety lacking in many novels. Not to mention how brilliant the characterization is. Six months after reading it, I am still truly haunted by it.

This book isn't scary. It deals with loss and transience
To think of this book as a horror story is to misunderstand it. Though there is one very scary scene in it, and some disturbing moments, it's not scary overall. The tone is more one of sadness. The book explores the theme of loss, and transience. It's very poignant, even painful. It's similar to Haruki Murakami in that little is properly explained, but it probably has more in common with The Time Traveller's Wife.