Whoops. You caught me keeping Viable Paradise hours. 🙂 I’m on the downhill swing of the cold, and a hot drink is helping me decroupify.
I’m only three stories in, but I can unstintingly recommend Christopher Barzak’s The Love We Share Without Knowing.
Barzak’s gentle story cycle will be of particular interest to those of you familiar with the culture of Japan. Not the shiny, glossy anime Japan, but rather the soft, multi-layered, nuanced Japan that anyone who has visited the country for a length of time will recognize. Barzak’s particular strength is the taffy-like interpersonal relationships he describes among Japan and those misfits from soto or out groups. In Barzak’s case, the outsiders are not all gaijin or foreigners.
Effective on many levels, subtle but not obscure, the book is a chance to get a glimpse into a culture that sometimes seems like a secret.
Catherine
