Review: Lion Cross Point

Lion Cross Point by Masatsugu Ono
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this author's newly translated novel yesterday and felt chagrined I had not yet read this one, so I remedied that last night.

I saw a review that referred to this as "post-Murakami" and it does feel like it goes along with the shorter, character-driven novels I've read from Japan in the last few years, more often by female writers. It's also post-Murakami in the sense that it's all very much about reality and perception, no bonus moons or mysterious creatures here. Just the weirdness of humanity and nature.

The entire novel is told through the perspective of ten year old Takeru, returning to his mother's home. The reader is never told directly what has happened, and some pieces fall into pieces through what Takeru observes or remembers even if he doesn't understand (some because of age, some because of trauma.)

I also learned from this novel that there is a Tokyo accent. There is an interesting town vs. rural dynamic going on here, but instead of it being people looking down on the small rural town, it's very much the small town people being a bit disdainful of those in Tokyo.

Support small presses! I subscribe to Two Lines Press and they send me books every year along the way so really we both benefit. They do important translation work and are able to bring attention to authors that we wouldn't know about otherwise. You can follow the link I already provided to just buy their books too; this is a terribly difficult time for our independent presses and we must do what we can.

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