Purchase

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Powell's Books

Books-A-Million

Indie BookShop

Ripped Bodice

Add to Wish List

Also by Banana Yoshimoto:

Dead-End Memories, August 2022
Hardcover / e-Book
The Lake, May 2011
Hardcover

The Lake
Banana Yoshimoto

Melville House Publishing
May 2011
On Sale: May 2, 2011
208 pages
ISBN: 1933633778
EAN: 9781933633770
Hardcover
Add to Wish List

Fiction

A major literary sensation is back with a darkly mysterious masterpiece: a quietly stunning tour de force about the redemptive power of love

A PORTION OF THE PROCEEDS FROM THIS BOOK WILL GO TO JAPAN DISASTER RELIEF

While The Lake shows off many of the features that have made Banana Yoshimoto famous—a cast of vivid and quirky characters, simple yet nuanced prose, a tight plot with an upbeat pace—it’s also one of the most darkly mysterious books she’s ever written.

It tells the tale of a young woman who moves to Tokyo after the death of her mother, hoping to get over her grief and start a career as a graphic artist. She finds herself spending too much time staring out her window, though ... until she realizes she’s gotten used to seeing a young man across the street staring out his window, too.

They eventually embark on a hesitant romance, until she learns that he has been the victim of some form of childhood trauma. Visiting two of his friends who live a monastic life beside a beautiful lake, she begins to piece together a series of clues that lead her to suspect his experience may have had something to do with a bizarre religious cult. . . .

With its echoes of the infamous, real-life Aum Shinrikyo cult (the group that released poison gas in the Tokyo subway system), The Lake unfolds as the most powerful novel Banana Yoshimoto has written. And as the two young lovers overcome their troubled past to discover hope in the beautiful solitude of the lake in the country- side, it’s also one of her most moving.