After Dark - Haruki Murakami

Midnight approaches, yet the city continues to moan, a sound "pregnant with foreboding ... the district plays by its own rules at a time like this. The season is late autumn. No wind is blowing, but the air carries a chill. The date is just about to change." Haruki Murakami's short, sweet 2004 novella opens four minutes shy of midnight, where a young girl sits alone in a fast-food restaurant over a book, unwilling to return home. Elsewhere, her sister sleeps an unnatural, seemingly endless sleep - and as the clock ticks past twelve, the unplugged television in the corner of her room begins to flicker and come to life. A young man with loose ...  Read the complete review

In his most recently published work of fiction, Haruki Murakami returns to the heady blend of juxtapositions of the real and the surreal that is his calling card in the world of modern fiction. Murakami writes the sort of intelligent fiction that seems almost effortless, although this is no doubt far from the truth. His novels frequently seem to force our world into competition with a second 'shadow' world, where the magical bleeds into the normal at the fringes of our perceptions of daily life. In this gritty slice of late night life, he weaves together the lives of city dwellers as they are brought together by circumstance. Mari has missed the last train ...  Read the complete review