Yet another great book from David Mitchell.
This story has us following a young Japanese man, Eiji Miyake, looking for his father through Tokyo’s twists and turns.
Eiji has never met his father as he is the child of one of his father’s affairs. Eiji’s twin sister died in a swimming accident when he was young and he is also estranged from his mother, and in so being this puts even more emphasis on meeting his father and being acknowledged as his son and finding some family.
The strange thing with this story (there always seems to be a strange thing with David’s stories), is that while the whole book is written in Eiji’s first person perspective, only part is real while the other part of it is the pure fantasy of Eiji’s imagination. But where real and fantasy meet, and which is which, one is left feeling never quite sure as they blend so seamlessly taking the reader on a journey where fantasy and reality become the same and/or irrelevant.
This is certainly a great book, especially for those estranged from parents while young, and a fantastic adventure (or maybe a fantastic fantasy) through the seedy underworld of Tokyo.
Well worth a read! David Mitchell is truly one of the greatest writers of our time.
