Book Review of the Library of Heartbeats by Laura Imai-Messina
(Translated by Lucy Rand)
* * * * *
(This review is based on a free review Epub from the publisher via Net Galley UK.)
A lyrical real-world fable set in modern day Japan.
An artist brought up by a widow who edits his reality to spare him from tragedy learns to face life without his mother, and, it turns out, his son, when he befriends a little boy. Man and boy bond (when they know they must part) on a journey to the “Library of Heartbeats” where the unique heartbeats of people from all over the world are stored in a beautiful building on a small Japanese island, where visitors can listen to any heartbeat in the archive and record their own, with any message they like for those who might one day hear it, or leave no message but the heartbeat itself. Along the way, they learn that imagination and friendship can not only deal with tragedy and purge needless guilt*, but enhance reality and make life so much better and well worth living.
*perhaps the truly guilty experience no guilt themselves, but this fable sees no guilt in anyone.
The Library of Heartbeats by Laura Imai-Messina is published in the UK by Bonnier Books on the 4th of January 2024.
