Literary fiction set in Tokyo -A Quiet Place by Seicho Matsumoto

Submitted: 9th November 2023

A Quiet Place set in Tokyo – Seicho Matsumoto

While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack back in Tokyo. He heads back there immediately but is shocked at what he finds out. How did his wife, who hardly ever went out except to haiku meetings—ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood?

BookTrail the locations in A Quiet Place

Boarding Pass Information :

Destination : Tokyo

Author guide: Seicho Matsumoto

Genre: translated fiction

Food and drink to accompany: Japanese of course

#Bookreview

@thebooktrailer

A novel to transport you to a shady area in Tokyo

BookTrail the locations in A Quiet Place

This is ironically a quiet novel – one that mumurs softly as you read it before it hits home and you get what it’s trying to say. What I mean by this is that it read as quite a simple novel – a man finds out his wife is leading a double/secret life. What the novel is really about is Japanese society and the way social norms, shame, justice and relationships affect every part of life.

BookTrail the locations in A Quiet Place

It really got going when the husband ventured to the shady area of Tokyo and to the shop where his wife had collapsed. He gets more involved with investigating how and why she died and you see a change in him. He becomes even more worried, paranoid and anxious as he finds out things and ventures into places he could never have imagined.

I don’t know what I imagine the wife was involved with but I had imagined it was worse that what was in the book. That’s bad enough don’t get me wrong but I had hoped for something more weird. What does that make me? haha

As I said, a quiet novel but a look at Japanese society.