Short novel set in TOKYO

30th January 2024

A Perfect Day to Be Alone by Nanae Aoyama, short novel set in Tokyo.

TR: Jesse Kirkwood

A short, easy-to-read and thought-provoking novel. Covering just 150 pages this is the story of Chizu, who goes to live with a distant relative – 71 year old Ginko – in Chofu, just outside Tokyo. She works as a hostess and takes a job at a kiosk in a nearby station.

Ginko lives in a ramshackle house, just by the railway and she has always had cats in her life. There is an epitaph to all her past furry friends in the form of photos, hung around Chizu’s room.

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Chizu, in essence, is on the cusp of adulthood, a mere twenty years old, who perceives Ginko as an old woman who perhaps isn’t in possession of her full faculties, and indeed she imagines that she might drop dead at any moment. Chizu still has one foot in her teenage years, Miffy (the little Dutch (yes, really!) children’s bunny character) still pops up in her life, and her mother – visiting from China where she is currently working – arrives with a gift in the form of a teddy. And yet she is straining at the leash to move into proper adulthood. What does connection with another human being really feel like?

Chizu clearly has anger issues, as she can be a little priggish and rude to those around her but Ginko takes it all in good heart. She has had kleptomaniac tendencies throughout her life, stealing items to keep in a box which somehow remind her of her past life. Ginko is perfectly aware of her lodger’s habit and once Chizu decides to move out after a year of living with Ginko, she acknowledges her thieving. Ginko has, in fact, modelled a good enough relationship for Chizu which she can take forward in her new life, and perhaps Chizu begins to recognise this…..

This is a simple but involving coming-of-age story that has cats (so often a feature of Japanese literature), food, wry humour and is perfectly set in Japan.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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