Lead Review (Goodnight Tokyo)
- Book: Goodnight Tokyo
- Location: Tokyo
- Author: Atsuhiro Yoshida, Haydn Trowell (Translator)
The concept of these short, interconnected stories is interesting. Matsui drives a taxi at night and every morning (as it were) he sets off at 1am to pick up a variety of passengers. He has to drop them off all over the metropolis and as he drives he gets to hear some interesting stories. Stories that are coloured by the dark city, as it winds down a little for a few hours. Matsui always ends his night at his favourite diner, tempted by one of their famous dishes.
Each story has a delightful title. “The Loquat Thief” is the opening story and Mitsuki is a ‘procurer’ for film sets. This time, at very short notice, she has to find some loquats for first thing in the morning, so she is on a night-time mission to hunt them down in order to fulfil her duty. Her story is picked up after one of the frequent earthquakes that plague the city, in “Two Moons”. She has secured the peanut crusher… (whatever that is). Other titles are “A Rain of Feathers” or “Blue Staircases – there are 12 stories in total.
Other characters come and go, sharing aspects of their lives with the reader through the vehicle 
of Matsui’s taxi.I very much like fiction set in Tokyo, as it takes me back to time spent in the city. With these stories I struggled to really engage with the narrative and characters, and I think these stories won’t stick with me for the longer term. I also get the manga/cartoon nature of artwork in the popular Japanese publishing sector, but this cover would not really prompt me to pick it up in a bookshop.
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