Banana Yoshimoto

Japan’s internationally celebrated master storyteller returns with five stories of women on their way to healing that vividly portrays the blissful moments and everyday sorrows that surround us in everyday life First published in Japan in 2003 and never-before-published in the United States, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery. Among the women we meet in Dead-End Memories is a woman betrayed by her fiancé who finds a perfect refuge in an apartment above her uncle’s bar while seeking the real meaning of happiness. In “House of Ghosts,” a daughter of a yōshoku restaurant owner encounters the ghosts of a sweet elderly couple who haven’t yet realized that they have been dead for years. In “Tomo-chan’s Happiness,” an office worker who is a victim of sexual assault finally catches sight of the hope of romance. Yoshimoto’s gentle, effortless prose reminds us that one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with and that happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to pause and reflect. Discover this collection of what Yoshimoto herself calls the “most precious work of my writing career.”

Stories

Dead-End Memories

grace

, I thought. You didn't often find someone as candid and genuine as he was.

"I'm done dwelling on it. What I want right now is to be here, just like this..."

like a jellyfish drifting on the current, in the transparent tint of a sky moving through autumn into winter, in this city where I'm no one at all.

I'm just happy he's here. I don't need him to be mine

. I wanted to appreciate him the way I did giant trees in the park, which gave people shelter and relief but didn't belong to anybody.

karina

I know now that just then, under the worst possible conditions, I was in the midst of my greatest happiness.

 If I could take those hours from that afternoon and put them in a box, I'd treasure them for the rest of my life. Happiness descends on you suddenly, regardless of circumstance, and so indifferently that it seems cruel. It doesn't care where you are, or who you're with. 

It might arrive with your next breath, or you might never get to experience it no matter how long you wait. Like the movements of waves, or shifts in the weather, the miracle lies in wait for everyone. 

"Keep looking out for happiness. Don't stop,”

Here I was, with a body, looking up at the sky. I existed. As beautiful as the sun setting in the distance, life lived inside this, the only body I would ever have.

It’s not the working with my hands that I want to get away from, or the baking. Dessert gives people a moment to dream. It makes people happy.

‘cause you’re just a man, it’s just what you do

 wen

"But us guys, we only see holes. No matter how pretty a girl's makeup looks, or what she's wearing, or what ordinary thing we're talking about, all we can think of is how somewhere deep inside this person, there's a hole-a wet hole, and that's all we can see. Once the thought comes into your head, it’s all there is.”

Why, there's no need to be afraid of them. They don't mean to be dead. They'll simply keep on living the way they always did, forever.

Iwakura waved and rode off on his moped. It was old, but looked expensive, and had been lovingly maintained. You can tell when people have been cared for, I thought.

Francesca

People like him only see the world through assumptions. Just because they know someone who doesn't get to go outside, or leave their hometown, or has a life that looks boring... To then think that person's mind must be captive, too, or placid and simple? It's such a failure of imagination. But that's how most people think. They don't realise that your mind can be as spacious and wide-open as you want. Most people don't even try to see the treasure that lies inside the people they know.

Happiness descends on you suddenly, regardless of circumstance, and so indifferently that it seems cruel. It doesn't care where you are, or who you're with. 

You can't make it happen. It might arrive with your next breath, or you might never get to experience it no matter how long you wait. Like the movements of waves, or shifts in the weather, the miracles lie in wait for everyone.

"Keep looking out for happiness. Don't stop," I said, and my tears were coming, too. I hung up and cried for just a minute. These were good tears: an offering to accidents of timing. They squeezed my chest and glittered, and out of my sadness they fell and fell.

I knew that under our separate skies, Nishiyama and I were both so lonely it physically hurt. And in my mind's eye I saw once again the view from the upstairs window, and the quiet golden world where ginkgo leaves fell and settled forever on the ground.

I felt then that — even if I might someday forget when and where I had encountered them, or how they'd made me feel — these scenes were safely stowed in the part of my heart where I kept my most treasured memories, and would be among the visions that rose, radiant, to meet me at the moment of my death, as symbols of happiness, to lead me away.

This was what it took, I realized, to be something that survived. 

But — like the ever-flowing river — to engulf everything that came your way and move swiftly on as though it had never been.

Walking shoulder to shoulder on a winter afternoon, dressed casually and holding bulky bags of groceries, anyone seeing us would have thought we were newlyweds, or a nice cohabiting couple. But we were only two people, a little regretful, and soon to part.

We were having so much fun that it made me sad.

"If I stay home, with my family, for the rest of my life, I'll just get more and more nice." 

"It's fine, except the way I see it, it's not real. Anyone can be kind when they've got enough money and free time, and no problems, don't think? What I'm saying is, if I stay at home, that's all my niceness will ever be. And either something dark and unpleasant starts building up inside me, or I'm stuck with that superficial niceness until I die. I'm lucky to be easygoing by nature, and I want to make sure that's what I feed. Not the dark stuff."

"This is a supremely hopeful book, one that feels important because it shows that happiness, while not always easy, is still a subject worthy of art." —Brandon Taylor, The New York Times Book Review Japan’s internationally celebrated master storyteller returns with five stories of women on their way to healing that vividly portrays the blissful moments and everyday sorrows that surround us in everyday life First published in Japan in 2003 and never before published in the United States, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery. Among the women we meet in Dead-End Memories is one betrayed by her fiancé who finds a perfect refuge in an apartment above her uncle’s bar while seeking the real meaning of happiness. In “House of Ghosts,” the daughter of a yoshoku restaurant owner encounters the ghosts of a sweet elderly couple who haven’t yet realized that they’ve been dead for years. In “Tomo-chan’s Happiness,” an office worker who is a victim of sexual assault finally catches sight of the hope of romance. Yoshimoto’s gentle, effortless prose reminds us that one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with, and that happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to pause and reflect. Discover this collection of what Yoshimoto herself calls the “most precious work of my writing career.”

c. y.

I started to feel that the two of us had been cut off from everything good—things like the lights of the world, the transparentness of dragonfly wings, perfect seasons expressed in wagashi, the luminous pale pink of cherry blossoms along the river, the way you look forward to going on vacation, the delightful feeling of knowing you're about to eat something good—and that dawn would never come.

sophie yang 

of all of them, dead-end memories was my favorite :’) been reading this off & on throughout the last couple weeks & really liked all of the short stories, a genre i’m still getting used to, how it throws you into the heart of the matter exactly where the author wants you to be. what i loved was how simple some of these were & how despite that the warmth was so pervasive. like life. 

I may return to write a review that does my feelings justice but dear god I love banana yoshimoto; i swear she can save your life

azliana aziz

bit flummoxed here as i felt the translation was off. there was so little trace of yoshimoto's sophisticated no nonsense air in the stories instead they all read pretty much more infantile. and god hella didactic it was annoying.

Laurianne

"I was also learning that every single person in the world had been hurt by their family at some point. I wasn't special at all—some people dealt with it well, and some didn't, but that was the only difference, and either way, we were all nourished and cherished by our families, and at the same time limited and defined by them—that was what it meant to be human, I understood."

This book is made up of five short stories. Each is bizarre in its own way, like other Japanese literatures, but I learn a lot from every single one of them. The short stories are as follows:
1. House of Ghosts 4/5
It's about a person living in a haunted building. After developing a relationship with a girl, both of them decide to send off the ghosts with one last favorite meal of theirs as an offering. I think it was very thoughtful.
2. Mama! 3/5
Of a daughter reminiscing her childhood. She begins pondering the whereabouts of her mama upon a misfortune that befell her unexpectedly.
3. Not Warm At All 4/5
Tells about a boy who yearns for the "light" from a small family of a girl he befriends with. How he thinks that warmth doesn't come from bright lights, rather it's radiating from the people that shine.
4. Tomo-chan's Happiness 3/5
Focusing on Tomo-chan and how she makes peace with the world, finding happiness in even the smallest things.
5. Dead-end Memories 5/5
About holding on to something that's already slipping from your fingertips and learning how to live a life again. I love this one best.

renni

"I'd always believed I didn't take up a lot of space in this world that it hardly mattered whether I was here or not. When a person left, the people around them got used to their absence. That was true enough. But when I pictured the world without me, and the people I loved living on in it, I couldn't help but feel like crying."

Banana yoshimoto at it again in making me in awe of her writings 😮‍💨☝🏻 personally loved "kitchen" but DEM comforted me in different ways.

my favorite story amongst other stories would be "not warm at all" 🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂 on my way now on finding & reading other works of banana !! 🦹🏻‍♀️

Jeremy Wang

banana hits again! i'm a little sad to see my pet thesis dismantled, but it was in the best way possible. the singular characters that usually live at the center of banana's stories take a backseat in this collection, leaving space for the narrators to muse and philosophize by themselves. one by one, they peel away scars left by ordinary life and heal, even as it seems like nothing really happens. among banana's works that i've read, this collection treats loneliness and grief most simply, and i feel like i learned most explicitly here how the serendipitous happenings of the everyday can save us. 

and as usual, banana's characters bleed pathos. i loved the voices and stories of the yoshoku daughter and iwakura, of mimi and nishiyama, their matter-of-fact relatability. 

thank you for this gift <3

every time! without fail! banana makes me feel like i’m in love, but also unmoored by the impermanence of life. it’s a strange, but not unwelcome feeling. these five short stories are ultimately about the people who pass through our lives and touch us in some unforgettable way (which is pretty quintessential banana)! the last story held such a breathtaking scene; i wanted nothing more than to paint it or hold it forever in my memory.

charisa

Short story collections are always hard to rate because you're bound to enjoy some stories more than the others. In this case, that last one was a really solid way to end the collection! 10/10. Can't wait to read Kitchen by Yoshimoto.

Amanda

I quite enjoyed this book's characters and pacing. It dealt with even the toughest of subjects with a softness and grace that I really enjoyed. Bittersweet tales of women finding their place in the world.

I did find the writing style a bit bland, but it was very readable anyway. 

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

Every book I've read by Yoshimoto has made me feel calmly introspective, which I love.

L'odore delle foglie secche colpite dal sole e il rumore della città, abbracciati, fanno da cornice a un amore che finisce e un'amicizia che fiorisce. E che diventa qualcosa di molto di più grande, di indimenticabile. Il racconto che Banana Yoshimoto considera il suo capolavoro ("Solo per aver potuto scrivere questo racconto, ringrazio di essere diventata scrittrice"). Una grande storia d'amore, qualunque sia il nome con cui vogliamo chiamare questo sentimento che ci illumina la vita. Tratto da Ricordi di un vicolo cieco, pubblicato da Feltrinelli.Numero caratteri: 65.502

Ricordi di un vicolo cieco

Ofelia

Sinceramente nessuna delle storie mi ha entusiasmata. Mi aspettavo qualcosa di meglio, alla fin fine non mi ha detto niente.

Morgana

Alcuni di questi racconti mi hanno anche presa un po' ( tipo l'ultimo ) ma alcuni erano veramente veramente pensati e ho fatto fatica a finirli anche se erano proprio corti.

Dead-End Memories Stories

Reviews

Highlights