The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World

An international bestseller, THE PHONE BOOTH AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

by Laura Imai Messina is one of my most favorite books of the year.  I honestly had thought it would be a bit morbid, but instead I found Messina’s English debut to be a beautiful story of hope that I did not want to end.  Messina, who has lived in Japan for 15 years, explains to her readers about the disconnected phone booth that exists in Otsuchi, Japan. Conceived as a means for speaking “on the wind” with deceased loved ones, especially those killed in the March 2011 tsunami, the phone booth sits at the bottom of a garden. It draws people from around the world, including Messina’s fictional characters: Yui has lost her daughter and mother and Takeshi has lost his wife.  They meet multiple times at the phone booth, gradually learning about each other and rebuilding their lives. This is an emotional story – filled with grief, and growing trust, and dreams, and love. With so much death and despair in the past year, THE PHONE BOOTH AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD shows that while still remembering loved ones, healing exists; there is promise and potential in the future. Highly recommended.  

For more on the phone booth itself and the aftermath of the tsunami (10 years ago today), please see coverage from the BBC, NPR’s This American Life, and Reuters.