#BlogTour ‘The Phone Box At The End Of The World’ by Laura Imai Messina trans Lucy Rand

About the book…

We all have something to tell those we have lost . . .

When Yui loses her mother and daughter in the tsunami, she wonders how she will ever carry on. Yet, in the face of this unthinkable loss, life must somehow continue.

Then one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone box in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone box spreads, people will travel there from miles around.

Soon Yui will make her own pilgrimage to the phone box, too. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Then she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of their loss.

What happens next will warm your heart, even when it feels as though it is breaking.

Massive thanks to publishers Manilla Press and blog tour organiser Tracy Fenton for having me on the tour for ‘The Phone Box At The Edge Of The World’, which is published in paperback on March 4th 2021.

This is one of those stories that leaves an indelible mark, it is a book you will want to press upon others and recommend as much as possible, even though you are aware you about to unleash a torrent of tears and a flood of emotions.

That the phone box is based upon a true story, and rooted in the devastation of the 2011 tsunami, makes it a vital and heartrending read-these are the stories of people who do not have an ending to their tales, the missing remain gone, but in the gap between here and gone lies the potential for the loved ones to be somewhere.

So why not at the end of this non descript black phone in the middle of nowhere?

Yui’s story is one of grief, loss and a lack of an ending, a flowing river through which both her 3 year old daughter and mother have existed and now no longer do. The ripping up of her roots from the generation above, and below Yui leaves her unanchored, and lost.

The phone box is a story she has heard of in her radio show exploring how people cope, live with and occasionally, move on, from grief. Whether by death of a relationship, death of a loved one in circumstances explained or mysterious, the coping mechanisms that we have and use to get through the worst of times an often exacerbate grief. For if relief can be obtained by cleaning, cooking, creating, doing, does that ability to feel momentary respite counteract the loss?

As I read this novel, in the week leading up to the first anniversary of my father passing away, very suddenly, what Yui was looking for felt very close to home, and very real. The process through which we move through loss and bereavement is so unique, so individual and non linear that it can be frustrating and all consuming. And yet, there is hope, that one day you can speak a name, talk about things without feeling stabbed in the heart and catching your breath.

The entire notion of a phone which can take your words, which sends them on the wind to wherever your loved ones are, a mechanism through which you can speak, is a symbol of such love the likes of which I have never encountered. As the story begins, Yui is doing everything she can to protect this man made edifice to the lost against the weather conditions which took her loved ones away. As she tried to keep safe this symbol to loved ones, she travels back to how she first encountered the phone, how she made her way to it and what it came to mean .

She makes this amazing pilgrimage to a place where she believes she can say what she would, if she could, to her loved ones, only to have the words stolen from her by grief.

It takes the intervention of others to give voice to her love and ultimately, this is a novel of hope, human resilience and the way in which in the worst of all times, the best of people step forward to stand alongside you. A truly remarkable and unforgettable book which will be handed down and re-read over and over again, I recommend it unreservedly.

About the author and translator….

Laura Imai Messina has been living in Japan for the last 15 years and works between Tokyo and Kamakura, where she lives with her Japanese husband and two children.

She took a Masters in Literature at the International Christian University of Tokyo and a PhD in Comparative Literature at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The Phone Box at the Edge of the World has been sold in over 21 territories.

Twitter @LaImaiMessina @Tr4cyF3nt0n @ZaffreBooks

Links-https://www.lauraimaimessina.com/

Lucy Rand is a teacher, editor and translator from Norfolk, UK. She has been living in the countryside of Oita in south-west Japan for three years.

https://www.lucyrand.com/