Akiko’s Quiet Happiness

Sendker (The Art of Hearing Heartbeats) offers a tender depiction of a lonely 29-year-old Tokyo accountant drifting through life in the wake of her mother’s death. Akiko isn’t sure she knows herself or even likes herself enough to pull off a stunt like the one staged by her self-absorbed colleague, who “married herself” to avoid remaining single at 30. Akiko is also struck when former classmate Kento, a former child piano prodigy, praises Akiko’s writing, prompting her to wonder if she should quit her job and pursue her early passion. Akiko’s thoughts on love and her vocation are further destabilized when she learns from poring through her mother’s paperwork that the man who often visited her in her youth was not her real father but a “rental father” her mother paid to play the role. In the novel’s poignant and vivid conclusion, Akiko and Kento take the train to a seaside region she once visited with her mother. There, Akiko and Kento release her mother’s ashes into the ocean, and each consider their potential for a new life. The result is a cinematic work of rich emotional depth. (Jan.)