`Astonishing¿ Emily Perkins author of Lioness `Beautifully lyrical¿ Mat Osman bassist of
Suede and author of The Ghost Theatre A lyrical and ambitious exploration of madness and what
it is like to experience the world differently from the Booker Prize¿longlisted author of The
Chimes. In Ueno Park Tokyo as workers and tourists gather for lunch the pollen blows a
fountain erupts pigeons scatter and two women meet changing the course of one another¿s
lives. Dinah has come to Japan from New Zealand to teach English and grieve the death of her
brother Michael a troubled genius who was able to channel his problems into music as a
classical pianist ¿ until he wasn¿t. In the seemingly empty eerie apartment block where Dinah
has been housed she sees Michael everywhere even as she feels his absence sharply. Yasuko is
polished precise and keenly observant ¿ of her students and colleagues at the language school
and of the natural world. When she was thirteen animals began to speak to her to tell her
things she did not always want to hear. She has suppressed these powers for many years but
sometimes she allows them to resurface to the dismay of her adult son Jun. One day she
returns home and Jun has gone. Even her special gifts cannot bring him back. As these two
women deal with their individual traumas they form an unlikely friendship in which each will
help the other to see a different possible world as Smaill teases out the tension between our
internal and external lives and asks what we lose by having to choose between them.
