The Heartbeat Library: A Novel

by Laura Imai Messina

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Where does our love go for those who've passed? This profound novel of an unlikely friendship and a life-changing pilgrimage has answers…

The Heartbeat Library is a tender, contemplative, and uplifting novel about grief, friendship, and the many ways we heal, by the internationally bestselling author of The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World.

On the peaceful Japanese island of Teshima there is a library of heartbeats, a place where the heartbeats of visitors from all around the world are collected. In this small, isolated building, the heartbeats of people who are still alive or have already passed away continue to echo.

Several miles away, in the ancient city of Kamakura, two lonely souls meet: Shuichi, a 40-year-old illustrator, who returns to his hometown to fix up the house of his recently deceased mother, and eight-year-old Kenta, a child who wanders like a shadow around Shuichi’s house.

Day by day, the trust between Shuichi and Kenta grows, until they discover they share a bond that will tie them together for life. Their journey will lead them to Teshima and to the library of heartbeats . . .

Enchanting, touching, and emotionally riveting, The Heartbeat Library is a story about loss and hope, pain and joy, reality and imagination, and the promise of healing and overcoming the odds thanks to the relationships we build and rediscover. Inspired by Les Archives du Cœur, an art installation in Japan that permanently houses recordings of the heartbeats of people throughout the world, Laura Imai Messina returns in this novel to the themes and atmospheres of her internationally bestselling novel The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, combining a real-life pilgrimage site of healing with an unforgettable and heartwarming story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419772498
Publisher:	The Overlook Press
Publication date:	10/22/2024
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	76,570
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Laura Imai Messina has made her home in Japan for the last 15 years and works between Tokyo and Kamakura, where she lives with her Japanese husband and two children. She has master’s and doctorate degrees from Tokyo University. She is the author of the internationally bestselling novel The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, which was sold in 25 countries. 

Editorial Reviews

09/16/2024

A grieving man forges an unexpected friendship with a young boy in this gentle novel from Messina (The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World). Picture book illustrator Maeda Shūichi returns from Tokyo to Kamakura after his mother’s death to prepare her house for sale. There, he catches eight-year-old Kenta rummaging through his mother’s things, and learns the boy spent his afternoons with Shūichi’s mother to escape his tense home life. Shūichi agrees to let Kenta keep visiting the house and protects him from bullies. Meanwhile, Kenta shares with Shūichi glimpses of a livelier side to his mother, who overprotected him as a boy due to his heart murmur. On a trip to Tokyo with Kenta, Shūichi reveals to Sayaka, a mortician he keeps bumping into around town and feels a spark with, that his own son drowned two years before and that his marriage fell apart as a result. Shūichi and Kenta then visit an art installation in Naoshima called the Archives of Heartbeats, which collects recordings of people’s heartbeats. There, Shūichi is met with a surprise, prompting him to offer Kenta a more meaningful role in his life. The story is a bit simplistic, but Messina’s light touch allows for genuine moments of connection between the characters. This brims with feeling. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2024-08-17
A 40-year-old children’s book author and illustrator returns to Kamakura from his home in Tokyo to clear out his mother’s house—and decides to stay.

About a year before his mother died, Shūichi shut himself off from all emotions in order to survive, for reasons that don’t become clear until later. After her death, he sets about methodically clearing out her house, hiring a workman to help make the process less personal. But then he discovers that a small boy has been stealing items that are being temporarily stored in the garage: a watering can, a stained apron, a chipped cup—nothing of true value. The unexpected oddity of it intrigues Shūichi, and he begins to observe the boy. From this small beginning, a friendship blossoms between 8-year-old Kenta—who had been spending his afternoons with Shūichi’s mother while his parents worked—and Shūichi, who decides to stay in his mother’s house after all. This story, told in chapters as well as small snippets, unfolds much like origami: There’s Shūichi’s separation from Aya, his former wife; his growing relationship with Sayaka, who prepared his mother for burial; and his inability to deal with the devastating event that originally caused him to suppress his emotions. But in closing himself off from pain, he has also closed himself off from joy. This is a masterful second book by Messina, author ofThe Phone Booth at the End of the World (2021); from the richly drawn characters to the slow unveiling of the story to the constant presence of the ocean, nature, and the steep hill that Shūichi lives on—reading this lovingly drawn story is an immersive experience.

A powerful, unforgettable tale of love that is made more poignant by the loss that preceded it.

Kirkus Reviews