A short, sharp novella set at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. It centres on two characters: a middle-aged former teacher living alone after returning to her hometown from Tokyo, and a former security guard who, down on his luck, is living in a room without amenities in his brother's garden. Both are isolated on the fringes of society and grappling with incidents from their past that are coming back to haunt them. They form an unusual bond in the uncertain circumstances of the pandemic and come to depend on each other for a sense of connection in a disconnected world.

I found it fascinating to see the pandemic from the point of view of a different nation, and felt the characters were very well realised and fleshed out. I did feel the same dissatisfaction I feel with a lot of novellas translated from the Japanese in that it ended so abruptly and I didn't get closure or a happy ending!

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