Parade: A Folktale
by Hiromi Kawakami
Translated from Japanese by
Allison Markin Powell
Soft Skull Press, 2019

"Stories from long ago are quite good, aren't they? Sensei said. I'm the one who told the story, I boasted. But I was the one who asked you to tell the story." This exchange concludes Japanese author Hiromi Kawakami's most recently translated work, Parade, which revisits Tsukiko and Sensei, the lead characters in her most famous book, Strange Weather in Tokyo. Kawakami is among Japan’s most acclaimed living writers, who excels at exploring modern life's complexities through the mundane and seemingly ordinary. Parade is no exception. This novella contemplates the power of storytelling and its ability to endear people to one another. In less than ninety pages, Kawakami invites readers into an intimate moment where stories are shared and consumed like nourishing and delicious food.

In Parade’s afterword, Kawasaki admits that she often wonders what happens to the characters in her finished stories, what they did between the moments on the page. Parade was created in an effort to capture those elusive moments that escape a text's author, moments that Kawakami describes as being "like echoes that I hear, far off in the distance." Fans of Strange Weather in Tokyo will be delighted to spend more time with Tsukiko and her former teacher. Likewise, those unfamiliar with Kawakami's work will have no difficulty becoming invested in Tsukiko and Sensei's relationship.

In Strange Weather in Tokyo, Tsukiko reunites with her former elementary school teacher. Both gripped by loneliness, Tsukiko and Sensei become drinking buddies, but soon develop an unconventional romance. Although she is nearing the age of forty, Tsukiko has traces of immaturity and continues to resist adulthood. She wishes to remain within the familiar territory of childhood, as evidenced by her decision to continue calling her former teacher “Sensei.” At the same time, the even-tempered Sensei is still shouldering pain from being estranged from his family. These characters are immediately lovable, and Kawakami's attachment to them is evident as they come alive in ways many other characters do not in short fiction form.

Parade is neither a sequel nor a prequel since it does not expand upon Strange Weather in Tokyo's plot. Instead, Parade offers two vignettes: one of Tsukiko and Sensei's time together, and the other a moment in Tsukiko's childhood. The action begins during a slow afternoon of cooking and lazing in the sun when Sensei asks her to tell him a story "from long ago." Tsukiko's choice of subject matter is surprising, not only because it involves supernatural elements, but also because it details her participation in her classmate Yuko's shunning.

She explains that at some point in the third grade, tengu (creatures from Japanese folklore with red skin, long noses, and wings) became visible to her and would follow her everywhere. The young Tsukiko treats them like other childhood collectibles such as bugs, seeds, or stray cats. These creatures function partly as imaginary friends and partly as an extension of Tsukiko's conscience, gleaned from the tengu's response to Yuko's ostracization. The tengu shoulder the burden of Tsukiko's guilt to the degree that they fall ill. If it truly is a memory, this choice of memory is intriguing, since Sensei has most likely witnessed similar bullying throughout his career as a teacher. For this reason, Tsukiko's story at times reads like a confession and her vulnerability is palpable. After listening to the memory, Sensei and Tsukiko spot the shape of a tengu on the ceiling. The story has brought them closer together.

The book's most distinctive feature is its publication format. Barely four inches high and filled with intriguing illustrations, Soft Skull’s edition of Parade explores new ways of conceptualizing memory. The novella's sections are never more than two pages long and treat memories like the negatives of a film reel, clear and precise yet fragmented. This same sense of clarity extends to Kawakami's writing, which is both dreamy and exacting. The young characters' dialogue is rife with childhood's sincerity, which helps ground this whimsical story in a believable reality. Kawakami beautifully evokes the sound of cicadas, the sun's warmth on tatami mats, the taste of margarine on toast, and the smell of cafeteria food travelling down a hallway. For all its lightness, Parade amazes with just how much feeling detail and sense of characters can fit into so few pages. Parade is an enjoyable read offering a glimpse of two characters' lives on a lazy Saturday afternoon, and will convince anyone who has not read Strange Weather in Tokyo to pick it up soon.

Kate Carberry is a graduate student and occasional book reviewer based in Montreal.