Hardboiled & Hard Luck

These two stories by Japanese writer Banana Yoshimoto reveal very deep emotions while at the same exercise exquisite restraint.  Both stories centre on the lives of young women touched by the untimely death of other young woman.  Hardboiled is a ghost story where the ghost appears on the first anniversary of her death. Hard Luck has the ghost-like spectre of a woman who is just about to die.  There is serious grief involved in both stories, but with an air of detachment that is completely believable. Yoshimoto's prose is spare and delicate and cuts directly to the heart.  These stories are deceptively simple. There is sadness and grief but there is also the resurgance of hope that fuels the two narrators by the end.  I think this is a book you could keep on your shelf and take down every few years and find a new insight on rereading. Buy at Amazon