Thoughts 
by Masatsugu Ono, Two Lines Press 2018/2013, 121 pages
Translated from Japanese by Angus Turvill
Challenge: none Genre: Contemporary Lit Type/Source: Tradeback, Scuppernongs Bookstore Mystery Purchase Why I read this now: One of the shortest and newest books to my shelf.MOTIVATION for READING: To honor the selections sent to me in a mystery purchase box to support independent bookstores. A covid purchase.
“… his mother’s face slipped like smoke between the fingers of his memory.”
WHAT’s it ABOUT: A 4th grader finds himself in his mother’s home town and dreading anyone who asks about her or his brother. We are never told what happened to propel his being in this new situation but we build in our imagination what possibly took place based on his fears and memory flashbacks. This is very much a book about memories and premonitions, spirits and hauntings, guilt and confusion. The past and present merge.
“Any memories that might rise up from the dark depths inside him would be memories of this land between the green hills and dark blue sea, this land that was now sinking into the depths of night.”
THOUGHTS: It ends very abruptly.
Likely a fabulous book to unpack in a literature class.
RATING: Four slices of pie.
From Night, poetry collection by Etel Adnan, 2016:
And night and memory mediate each other. We move in them disoriented, for they often refuse to secure our vision. Avaricious, whimsical, they release things bit by bit.
Ooooh, this sounds really cool! Two Lines Press is a terrific indie publisher; I’m always happy to encounter their books in the blogosphere.
Perhaps, methinks, you might find said book on a doorstep of the future…