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First Person Singular

Stories

Translated by Philip Gabriel
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Hardcover
$28.00 US
On sale Apr 06, 2021 | 256 Pages | 9780593318072
The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. 

Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.

First Person Singular will satisfy [Murakami’s] fans and serve as a fine introduction to neophytes, echoing many of the uncanny scenarios of his earlier work. . . . In “Cream,” the opening story of the collection, a lovesick young man goes to a piano recital located in the mountains of Kobe, only to find no one there. In unsettling episodes that one might find in a Flannery O’Connor story, he encounters a car broadcasting a Christian message that everyone will die and be judged harshly for their sins. . . . The collection’s Kafkaesque titular story is the strongest because of its notable timeliness. . . . These eight stories, all told in first person, are unapologetically Murakami . . . [and] will remind readers why Murakami’s work is singular.” —Leland Cheuk, The Washington Post
 
“To step into First Person Singular is to cross from our present moment and into a lost country demarcated by old memories. . . . [The story] “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey” is as fun as anything I’ve read during this pandemic lockdown. . . . The collection ends, brilliantly, with an interrogation. A man sits at a bar and a stranger begins to berate him about an event he has no memory of. . . . For all our reminiscing, Murakami seems to say, it’s the things we don’t remember that might haunt us the most. After all, memory is itself another liminal space, one where we experience both now and then at the same time. Likewise, finishing First Person Singular requires thinking back to everything we’ve just read about these characters’ lives, and to everything we didn’t.” —Andrew Ervin, The Brooklyn Rail
 
“[Murakami is] first and foremost a remarkably accessible storyteller. His books are an intimate invitation to revel in his perpetually unpredictable, yet remarkably convincing, imagination. . . . Murakami writes with such assurance as to turn the implausible credible, the outlandish engrossing. Each story enthralls.” —Terry Hong, Christian Science Monitor
 
“Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
“Murakami’s engrossing collection offers a crash course in his singular style and vision, blending passion for music and baseball and nostalgia for youth with portrayals of young love and moments of magical realism. . . . Murakami’s gift for evocative, opaque magical realism shines in ‘Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova,’ in which a review of a fictional album breathes new life into the ghost of the jazz great, and ‘Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,’ wherein a talking monkey ruminates with a traveler on love and belonging. Murakami finds ample material in young love and sex, showcased in ‘On a Stone Pillow,’ in which a young man’s brief tryst with a coworker, unremarkable in itself, takes on a degree of immortality after she mails him her poetry. . . . These shimmering stories are testament to Murakami’s talent and enduring creativity.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) 

“Whether in his epic-scale novels or in his shorter works, much of Murakami’s appeal has always come from the beguiling way in which his characters react to wildly fantastical events in the most matter-of-fact manner, ever ready to accept how the twists and turns of everyday life can blend into more audacious alternate realities. In these eight stories, we see that phenomenon most disarmingly in ‘Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,’ in which a monkey strides into a sauna at a remote hotel and asks the narrator if he would like to have his back scrubbed. . . . The glue that holds together Murakami’s blending realities—in these stories and, indeed, in all of his fiction—is always the narrator's love for something (a woman, a song, a baseball team, a moment in the past) that is both life-giving and deeply melancholic. Masterful short fiction.”—Bill Ott, Booklist (starred review)

“You can’t have a conversation about literary fiction of the past 50 years without mentioning Haruki Murakami, and First Person Singular reminds us why. . . . As one of the standard-bearers of contemporary magical realism, Murakami has traveled deep into the hearts and minds of both his characters and his readers. In First Person Singular, he offers eight new stories, all told in first person—hence the title—as perhaps memoir, perhaps fiction. For example, ‘The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection’ finds a baseball-loving writer named Haruki Murakami musing on his favorite team and the ties that bind us together. Murakami is always blurring lines, and here it’s left up to the reader to decide what’s real. By distorting reality, the author creates a special closeness to his audience, and he acknowledges this relationship with intelligence and grace.” —Eric Ponce, BookPage

“A new collection of stories from the master of the strange, enigmatic twist of plot. . . . Music is never far from a Murakami yarn, though always with an unexpected turn: Charlie Parker comes in a dream to tell one young man that death is pretty boring and meaningless. . . . Murakami’s characters are typically flat of affect, protesting their ugliness and ordinariness, and puzzled or frightened by things as they are. But most are also philosophical even about those ordinary things, as is the narrator of that fine Beatles-tinged tale, who ponders why it is that pop songs are important and informative in youth, when our lives are happiest. . . . An essential addition to any Murakami fan’s library.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
First Person Singular

I hardly ever wear suits. At most, maybe two or three times a year, since there are rarely any situations where I need to get dressed up. I may wear a casual jacket on occasion, but no tie, or leather shoes. That’s the type of life I chose for myself, so that’s how things have worked out.

Sometimes, though, even when there’s no need for it, I do decide to wear a suit and tie. Why? When I open my closet and check out what kind of clothes are there (I have to do that or else I don’t know what kind of clothes I own), and gaze at the suits I’ve hardly ever worn, the dress shirts still in the dry cleaner’s plastic garment bags, and the ties that look brand new, no trace of ever having been used, I start to feel apologetic toward these clothes. Then I try them on just to see how they look. I experiment with various tie knots to see if I still remember how to do them. Including one making a proper dimple. The only time I do all this is when I’m home alone. If someone else is here, I’d have to explain what I’m up to.

Once I go to the trouble of getting the outfit on, it seems a waste to take it all off right away, so I go out for a while dressed up like that. Strolling around town in a suit and tie. And it feels pretty good. I get the sense that even my facial expression and gait are transformed. It’s an invigorat­ing sensation, as if I’ve temporarily stepped away from the everyday. But after an hour or so of roaming, this newness fades. I get tired of wearing a suit and tie, the tie starts to feel itchy and too tight, like it’s choking me. The leather shoes click too hard and loud as they strike the pavement. So I go home, slip off the leather shoes, peel off the suit and tie, change into a worn-out set of sweatpants and sweatshirt, plop down on the sofa, and feel relaxed and at peace. This is my little one-hour secret ceremony, entirely harmless— or at least not something I need to feel guilty about.
© Elena Seibert
HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and one of the most recent of his many international honors is the Cino Del Duca World Prize, whose previous recipients include Jorge Luis Borges, Ismail Kadare, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Joyce Carol Oates. View titles by Haruki Murakami

About

The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. 

Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.

First Person Singular will satisfy [Murakami’s] fans and serve as a fine introduction to neophytes, echoing many of the uncanny scenarios of his earlier work. . . . In “Cream,” the opening story of the collection, a lovesick young man goes to a piano recital located in the mountains of Kobe, only to find no one there. In unsettling episodes that one might find in a Flannery O’Connor story, he encounters a car broadcasting a Christian message that everyone will die and be judged harshly for their sins. . . . The collection’s Kafkaesque titular story is the strongest because of its notable timeliness. . . . These eight stories, all told in first person, are unapologetically Murakami . . . [and] will remind readers why Murakami’s work is singular.” —Leland Cheuk, The Washington Post
 
“To step into First Person Singular is to cross from our present moment and into a lost country demarcated by old memories. . . . [The story] “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey” is as fun as anything I’ve read during this pandemic lockdown. . . . The collection ends, brilliantly, with an interrogation. A man sits at a bar and a stranger begins to berate him about an event he has no memory of. . . . For all our reminiscing, Murakami seems to say, it’s the things we don’t remember that might haunt us the most. After all, memory is itself another liminal space, one where we experience both now and then at the same time. Likewise, finishing First Person Singular requires thinking back to everything we’ve just read about these characters’ lives, and to everything we didn’t.” —Andrew Ervin, The Brooklyn Rail
 
“[Murakami is] first and foremost a remarkably accessible storyteller. His books are an intimate invitation to revel in his perpetually unpredictable, yet remarkably convincing, imagination. . . . Murakami writes with such assurance as to turn the implausible credible, the outlandish engrossing. Each story enthralls.” —Terry Hong, Christian Science Monitor
 
“Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
“Murakami’s engrossing collection offers a crash course in his singular style and vision, blending passion for music and baseball and nostalgia for youth with portrayals of young love and moments of magical realism. . . . Murakami’s gift for evocative, opaque magical realism shines in ‘Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova,’ in which a review of a fictional album breathes new life into the ghost of the jazz great, and ‘Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,’ wherein a talking monkey ruminates with a traveler on love and belonging. Murakami finds ample material in young love and sex, showcased in ‘On a Stone Pillow,’ in which a young man’s brief tryst with a coworker, unremarkable in itself, takes on a degree of immortality after she mails him her poetry. . . . These shimmering stories are testament to Murakami’s talent and enduring creativity.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) 

“Whether in his epic-scale novels or in his shorter works, much of Murakami’s appeal has always come from the beguiling way in which his characters react to wildly fantastical events in the most matter-of-fact manner, ever ready to accept how the twists and turns of everyday life can blend into more audacious alternate realities. In these eight stories, we see that phenomenon most disarmingly in ‘Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,’ in which a monkey strides into a sauna at a remote hotel and asks the narrator if he would like to have his back scrubbed. . . . The glue that holds together Murakami’s blending realities—in these stories and, indeed, in all of his fiction—is always the narrator's love for something (a woman, a song, a baseball team, a moment in the past) that is both life-giving and deeply melancholic. Masterful short fiction.”—Bill Ott, Booklist (starred review)

“You can’t have a conversation about literary fiction of the past 50 years without mentioning Haruki Murakami, and First Person Singular reminds us why. . . . As one of the standard-bearers of contemporary magical realism, Murakami has traveled deep into the hearts and minds of both his characters and his readers. In First Person Singular, he offers eight new stories, all told in first person—hence the title—as perhaps memoir, perhaps fiction. For example, ‘The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection’ finds a baseball-loving writer named Haruki Murakami musing on his favorite team and the ties that bind us together. Murakami is always blurring lines, and here it’s left up to the reader to decide what’s real. By distorting reality, the author creates a special closeness to his audience, and he acknowledges this relationship with intelligence and grace.” —Eric Ponce, BookPage

“A new collection of stories from the master of the strange, enigmatic twist of plot. . . . Music is never far from a Murakami yarn, though always with an unexpected turn: Charlie Parker comes in a dream to tell one young man that death is pretty boring and meaningless. . . . Murakami’s characters are typically flat of affect, protesting their ugliness and ordinariness, and puzzled or frightened by things as they are. But most are also philosophical even about those ordinary things, as is the narrator of that fine Beatles-tinged tale, who ponders why it is that pop songs are important and informative in youth, when our lives are happiest. . . . An essential addition to any Murakami fan’s library.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Excerpt

First Person Singular

I hardly ever wear suits. At most, maybe two or three times a year, since there are rarely any situations where I need to get dressed up. I may wear a casual jacket on occasion, but no tie, or leather shoes. That’s the type of life I chose for myself, so that’s how things have worked out.

Sometimes, though, even when there’s no need for it, I do decide to wear a suit and tie. Why? When I open my closet and check out what kind of clothes are there (I have to do that or else I don’t know what kind of clothes I own), and gaze at the suits I’ve hardly ever worn, the dress shirts still in the dry cleaner’s plastic garment bags, and the ties that look brand new, no trace of ever having been used, I start to feel apologetic toward these clothes. Then I try them on just to see how they look. I experiment with various tie knots to see if I still remember how to do them. Including one making a proper dimple. The only time I do all this is when I’m home alone. If someone else is here, I’d have to explain what I’m up to.

Once I go to the trouble of getting the outfit on, it seems a waste to take it all off right away, so I go out for a while dressed up like that. Strolling around town in a suit and tie. And it feels pretty good. I get the sense that even my facial expression and gait are transformed. It’s an invigorat­ing sensation, as if I’ve temporarily stepped away from the everyday. But after an hour or so of roaming, this newness fades. I get tired of wearing a suit and tie, the tie starts to feel itchy and too tight, like it’s choking me. The leather shoes click too hard and loud as they strike the pavement. So I go home, slip off the leather shoes, peel off the suit and tie, change into a worn-out set of sweatpants and sweatshirt, plop down on the sofa, and feel relaxed and at peace. This is my little one-hour secret ceremony, entirely harmless— or at least not something I need to feel guilty about.

Author

© Elena Seibert
HARUKI MURAKAMI was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and one of the most recent of his many international honors is the Cino Del Duca World Prize, whose previous recipients include Jorge Luis Borges, Ismail Kadare, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Joyce Carol Oates. View titles by Haruki Murakami