A beguiling novel about three women struggling to determine their own lives in contemporary Tokyo. 'Breathtaking' – Haruki Murakami author of Norwegian WoodA New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year' and one of Elena Ferrante's 'Top 40 Books by Female Authors'. Shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.On a hot summer’s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: thirty-year-old Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast enhancement surgery. She's accompanied by her daughter, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother’s self-obsession.Her silence dominates Natsuko’s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties and their relationships with one another. Eight years later, we meet Natsuko again. She is now a writer and finds
