All of Us Strangers
Mariner Books · first published 1987 · 201 pages
A recently divorced TV writer, living in a near-empty Tokyo building, meets a couple who look exactly like his parents, dead since his childhood.
The writing is plain and a little nervous, and summer heat, old neighborhoods, and loneliness give it a soft, uneasy glow.
For a night when the summer heat lingers.
About this book
Harada, a television scriptwriter in his late forties, lives alone in an office-and-apartment building that empties out at night. On a visit to Asakusa, the old district where he grew up, he meets a man and a woman who seem to be his parents, unchanged since they died decades ago. He keeps returning to their small apartment, and he also begins seeing Kei, a woman from his building. The book stays with grief, longing, and the pull of the past.