Strangers

Strangers by Taichi Yamada. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780571224364.

Middle-aged, jaded and divorced, TV scriptwriter Harada is forced to set up home in his office, situated in a high-rise apartment block overlooking Tokyos busy Route 8. One night, nostalgic for his lost childhood, he decides to visit the entertainment district of Asakusa, the citys dilapidated old downtown area, and there, at the theatre, he meets a man who looks exactly like his long-dead father. So begins Haradas ordeal, as hes thrust into a reality where his parents appear to be alive at the exact age they had been when they died so many years before. Although they may be apparitions, he takes solace in seeing them, in spite of the damage it seems to do to his health. Can Kei, the mysteriously fragile neighbour with whom Harada begins a tentative relationship, save him from the ghosts of his past?