The Third Love

The scintillating latest from Kawakami continues in the vein of Strange Weather in Tokyo with a story of love and life lessons told through a Japanese woman’s dreams. Thirty-something Riko is married to her childhood sweetheart, Naa-chan, who cheats on her repeatedly. She has a chance encounter with Mr. Takaoka, the janitor at her former elementary school, who teaches her how to magically inhabit the bodies of those living in historical periods while she dreams. She first visits Edo Japan as a young girl sold into sex work. There, Riko meets a version of Mr. Takaoka, who becomes one of her paying clients, though they don’t appear to have sex. Back in her own life, Riko gives birth to Naa-chan’s son, Toji. Irritated that Naa-chan isn’t helping with childcare, she retreats to her dreams, becoming the servant girl for a princess during the Heian period. Again, Mr. Takaoka appears, this time as a Buddhist monk. The historical settings blend seamlessly with Riko’s present-day narrative as she gathers a millennia’s worth of women’s perspectives and comes to expect less of men (“I have to accept that the knight on the white charger is just a human being”). Readers will be transported. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency. (Oct.)