The Phone Box at the Edge of the World: The most moving, unforgettable book you will read, inspired by true events

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Yet, emotional intensity is both skilfully portrayed and entirely consistent with Japanese proclivities. A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.

Amongst the many others seeking the cathartic release of connection with their departed loved ones, she meets Takeshi. The process of death, grief and the afterlife—Yui wonders “if, perhaps, the dead people we remembered in life here, weren’t in fact holding hands over there, if they had ended up getting to know each other, making new memories that the living were completely unaware of”—occupies much of the novel, but Messina deals both with the profound questions as well as the, perhaps, more practical moments. Inspired by a real telephone box located in the north-east of Japan comes The Phone Box at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina, a novel about Yui, a woman who lost her mother and daughter in the 2011 tsunami and is forced to navigate her grief as well as the life that lies ahead. Characterisation is assured, benefitting from innocent lists of the small details which define a person and our relationship with them.A favourite playlist, a list of flowers pressed between the pages of books by a character's mother, an address, a list of utterances whispered into the phone on one day. Sasaki installed a telephone box, a disconnected old black phone known as a wind phone in his garden, that carries voices to the wind. A receipt for a frame, a description of an object, a list of the ten most vivid memories of a person, what Yui’s mother and daughter were wearing on the morning of 11 March 2011, Yui’s favourite Brazilian songs, the original title of the picture book on the afterlife that Yui gave to Hana. I don’t really feel like a lot happened in this book and if it hadn’t been my love for the characters and writing style I wouldn’t have continued at all. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief.

Into this complex and emotive thematic fabric, Messina weaves in a love story as apprehensive as it is tacit. In March 2011, an earthquake off the coast of Japan caused an enormous tsunami that reached miles inland, killing an estimated 15,897 people. Only an inhabitant of a nation that has suffered such a shocking act of nature find true peace and understanding in a simple thing as an empty telephone box.The Phone Box At The Edge Of The World is a moving story about grief, compassion, human connection and love. Indeed, kijoor, the principle that the greater the suffering, the less it is shown, prevails in what remains a nation profoundly steeped in Buddhist tradition and societal prescriptives.