NP

by Banana Yoshimoto, Emily Zeller (Read by)

Overview

"Bananamania" has returned in an enchanting novel of uncanny subtlety, style, magic, and mystery that Frank Ramirez of the South Bend Tribune declares is "every bit as good as Yoskimoto's first book…perhaps better."

A celebrated Japanese writer has committed suicide, leaving behind a collection of stories written in English, NP. But the book may never be published in his native Japan: Each translator who takes up the 98th story chooses death too—including Kazami Kano's boyfriend, Shoji. Haunted by Shoji's death, Kazami is inexorably drawn to three young people whose lives are intimately bound to the late writer and his work. Over the course of an astonishing summer, she will discover the truth behind the 98th story—and she will come to believe that "everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful enough to make you crazy."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781511364454
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	12/31/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Banana Yoshimoto has won numerous prizes in her native Japan, and her first book, Kitchen, has sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books have been translated and published in more than twenty countries. She lives in Tokyo.

Editorial Reviews

Miraculous....[A] poignant achievement that draws its power from an atmosphere of earnestness—from that honesty of youth, untouched by cynicism....deceptively simple.
—Kathleen Byrne

Toronto Globe and Mail

The disturbing, ironic, relentless clarity of Kazami's voice casts a spell...
—Robert Johnson

Denver Post

Japanese novelist Yoshimoto follows her well-received Kitchen with an offbeat, intriguing, but ultimately unsatisfying tale about incest, suicide and broken relationships. NP (after an old, sad song titled ``North Point'') is the name of a short-story collection published in America by celebrated emigre writer Sarao Takase. The book seems, as one character says, to be cursed: Takase committed suicide, as did three would-be Japanese translators. Four years after the death of her boyfriend, who was the last of these translators, narrator Kazami Kano becomes involved with Takase's children, the twins Saki and Otohiko, and Otohiko's girlfriend, the willowy, messed up Sui Minowa. All three of them are obsessed with NP and particularly one story about a man's affair with a young girl whom he later discovers is his daughter--a thinly veiled description of Takase's affair with Minowa. With the ghostly figure of Takase, the four young people make for a messy stew of incest, lust and obsession that is eventually brought to a head by Minowa's shattering discovery that she is pregnant by Otohiko. Yoshimoto weaves some lyrical writing and philosophical intimations of the hand of fate into her minimalist prose, but on balance this story and its narcissistic characters fail to evoke much sympathy. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Following her successful debut novel, Kitchen ( LJ 12/92), Yoshimoto again attempts to wrestle with contemporary themes that reflect a less tradition view of Japanese culture. The narrator, Kazami Kano, befriends the adult children of a famous short story writer, Sarao Takase, who commits suicide and leaves behind an unpublished story that tells of his affair with his stepdaughter, Sui. Kazami becomes deeply entangled with Sui, who is living with Takase's son, Otohiko. Sui's psychological obsession with death and her destructive behavior culminates in a failed attempt on Kazami's life as part of a love suicide pact. Despite Yoshimoto's simple yet effective style and the challenging themes of incest, religion, and lesbianism, the youthful characters seem too wooden to allow the story to develop successfully. Not required for most collections.-- David A. Berona, Westbrook Coll. Lib., Portland, Me.

Library Journal

Japan's leading pop novelist follows her successful debut (Kitchen, 1993) with an ambitious novel of darker themes—incest, suicide, and the supernatural—that recalls more classic Japanese fiction. The narrator, a twentysomething translator named Kazami, was once the lover of the famous translator Shoji, who committed suicide shortly after completing his translation of the 98th story by the author of NP—the title of the volume of 97 short stories written by a middle-aged Japanese writer, Sarao Takase, who also committed suicide shortly after writing the 98th story. Since another translator of this story has also committed suicide, the story—about a father who abandons his family, leads a wild life, then seduces a woman who turns out to be his daughter—has acquired an understandably sinister reputation. Yoshimoto's novel begins as Kazami, troubled by mysterious intimations of danger and still mourning her dead love, meets up with Saki and Otochiko, adult children of NP's author. The three, who have much in common, including unhappy childhoods, become friends, and Saki and Kazami grow especially close. But then Kazami has a startling encounter with the enigmatic but very attractive Sui. Sui is also a daughter of NP's author—as well as the former mistress of translator Shoji—and the real-life inspiration for the 98th story. Currently the lover of half-brother Otochiko, she is guilt-ridden and grieving to the point that she and Otochiko frequently discuss the possibility of a "love suicide." But as the summer progresses, the four find ways—some dramatic, some banal—of expiating their feelings for the past and one another; and Kazami, a realsurvivor, now appreciates that "everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy." A contemporary, hip treatment of a potentially lurid plot makes for a read that nonetheless resonates with echoes of the past. Offbeat but sound. (First printing of 50,000)

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for N.P.:

“Fantastical, almost timeless quality . . . [Yoshimoto’s] ability to make everyday events seem romantic is a rare gift.”—Harper’s Bazaar

“Yoshimoto hits some of the same notes that a previous generation's literary masters (say, Kawabata or Tanizaki) might sound, and yet the effect seems artless, spontaneous and wonderfully fresh.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“The disturbing, ironic, relentless clarity of Kazami’s voice casts a spell . . . Yoshimoto has given readers a snapshot of a generation of Japanese women caught between traditional expectations that define them in male-dominated marriages and their desire to remain young, pure and free.”—Denver Post

“[An] ethereally mesmerizing . . . novel of Japan’s Generation X.”—Chicago Sun Times

“Banana Yoshimoto hits the generational mark again . . . N.P. is essential reading for everyone who has ever felt lost while trying to find their lives through coffee and credit cards . . . N.P. focuses on death and love and, most of all, overcoming loss and realizing that not everything is explainable in words.”—Detroit Free Press

“Deeper than trendy . . . miraculous . . . [a] poignant achievement that draws its power from an atmosphere of earnestness—from that honesty of youth, untouched by cynicism . . . Deceptively simple.”—Toronto Globe and Mail

“Charming . . . Positively exuberant . . . The narrators of her novels exude pure optimism, even as they suffer.”—Washington City Paper

“Yoshimoto throws four trendy young Japanese into a quandary that involves the reader instantly. Swept up by her heroine, Kazami Kano, off we run through the streets of Tokyo . . . Almost one with the girl, we feel the oppressive summer heat, her loneliness, blind trust and choking fear.”—Milwaukee Journal

“Japan’s leading pop novelist follows her successful debut with an ambitious novel of darker themes—incest, suicide, and the supernatural—that recalls more classic Japanese fiction . . . A contemporary, hip treatment . . . that nonetheless resonates with echoes of the past.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Compelling and clever, Yoshimoto writes with the sort of lucidity that usually takes hours and hours to appear so effortless . . . But what really makes N.P. click . . . are the indomitable personalities of the main figures.”—Trenton (NJ) Times

“Every bit as good as Yoshimoto’s first book . . . perhaps better.”— South Bend Tribune

From the Publisher