You can only participate in a bridge between the living world and the afterlife once. Who do you choose?
This could easily be the driving question for readers of Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon; certainly, it is where my mind turned after each new character makes a request of the “go-between” - the liaison between this life and the next. Who would I choose? Could I? It seems an impossible task with great potential for disappointment.
Yet the lost souls in Tsujimura’s engaging novel do make their requests after weighing the risks and rewards. A lonely, bookish girl swims in feelings of apathy and sadness, and seeks to connect with a celebrity with whom she has a chance encounter once (and a longer-lasting obsession). An oldest child of a family - the son taking on the weight of family name and duty - grows taciturn yet searing in his criticism of relatives who seem oblivious to the responsibilities of adulthood; he seeks one more meeting with his mother, for reasons unclear. A popular girl in school wishes to meet with her sweet, agreeable and put-upon best friend one more time - or is she a friend at all? A socially awkward businessman in middle age just wants to know whether he was a fool for loving his much-younger fiancée, who disappeared ten years earlier without a trace. Each of these encounters unfolds in surprising - and not always positive - ways. Is it peace with themselves or peace with others that each of them seeks? The weight of grief can connect us or drown us.
“This is a beautiful book that I could not put down.”
While the earlier chapters focus on each meeting from the requestor’s point of view, the final section of the book looks at all the meetings through the perspective of Ayumi Shibuya, the young man in designer duds that arranges each meeting with the deceased. This is the most engaging part of the story, as the reader learns how he came to his role and how he must ask himself the very questions he poses to others needing his services - and the truth can hurt.
Without giving more away (and reviewing the uncorrected proof), this is a beautiful book that I could not put down. Other reviews note a similar style to Murakami, and being a fan of his work, I would concur. It has a narrative style that moves with description yet economy in the continuous development of the characters. An English translation of the successful original Japanese imprint, Lost Souls is about what it means to love and the memories we hold of them before they died - and how it all can change if we get just one more meeting.
About the Author
Mizuki Tsujimura is a bestselling Japanese author whose books have sold over 10 million copies, and whose readership continues to grow. Several of her books have been made into high-profile Japanese-language films and/or manga. Loved by booksellers and readers alike, she is the only writer to have won both the Japan Booksellers’ award and the more literary Naoki Prize.
About the Reviewer
Bryn Robinson (she/her) lives in New Brunswick, Canada, where she uses her PhD in experimental psychology to help her support mental health research in the province. She prefers contemporary fiction, narrative non-fiction, graphic novels and poetry that is emotional, reflective, and if it can do it with humour, all the better. Bryn also writes on Campfire Notebook, where she regularly features original poetry. When not reading, she's searching for birds in the New Brunswick forests and seascapes, camera in hand.
Book Details
Publisher : Scribner Canada (Simon & Schuster) (Aug. 26, 2025)
Language : Translated into English by Yuki Tejima
Paperback : 256 pages
ISBN : 9781668099834