People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami
“Take a story and shrink it. Make it tiny, so small it can fit in the palm of your hand. Carry the story with you everywhere, let it sit with you while you eat, let it watch you while you sleep. Keep it safe, you never know when you might need it.”
Readers of Hiromi Kawakami’s novels will be ready to expect the hint of magical realism interlaced with human relationships that her most recent book, People From My Neighbourhood (2020), offers. The distinguishing feature of this newest release is the entire story is written in flash fiction form. Through a series of interlocked vignettes, Kawakami takes us on a journey that spans the lifetime of our main narrator, as they recall a series of stories about their neighbourhood and the people that have lived there. With escalating oddity, we learn all about the quirks and unusual pastimes of the weird and weirder growing cast of characters.
Many of the characters don’t have names and are instead referred to through aliases. Kanae is our narrator’s best friend, but her sister is only ever referred to as Kanae’s sister, despite appearing in several stories. The Dog School Principal, who keeps a watchful eye over the local dog park, is similarly only referred to by his role. Some characters move across genders, and others live out their entire life story across the matter of two or three pages.
Random outbreaks and bizarre happenings plague the neighborhood where they all live. Everyone is struck down by Pigeonitis, a condition that makes their eyes grow wide and their chests bulge as they strut around mindlessly. A group called the Buriers are called upon to bury random items the town no longer needs until they are discovered burying a body:
“The end of the buriers came when someone revealed that they had buried raw stuff. A group of the little kids had buried a woman’s corpse at the bottom of the school grounds.”
All the stories contain a magical element that helps to build them in grand ways, extending the narrative far beyond their brevity. On discovering ‘emotion shacks’ at the edge of town, the narrator and her friend learn the shacks absorb and expand when someone with the corresponding emotion enters them. After the town grows bored of the shacks, they are used only by the Dog School Principal to train dogs, whose emotions appear to have no impact on the shacks at all:
“‘In the end, a dog is just a dog,’ Kanae likes to brag. Nevertheless, not a single crack mars the walls of ‘the shack of joy.’ There can be no doubt - the dogs’ emotions are pure too.’”
Every story is short and complete in its own right, but some later stories revisit scenes from early on, giving us better context for what has happened. While they may only be a few pages long, each story provides us with a deeper glimpse into the neighborhood’s haunting and humorous happenings and leaves us with a subtle conclusion to ponder.
Before picking this up, I didn’t realise it paid homage to the micro and flash fiction form, and as a fan of writing in this fashion myself, I was eager to see how Kawakami played with her stories in this way. It is the first flash fiction collection I’ve read where all the stories have a focal point - based on the same town and set of characters - and I feel Kawakami has done a marvellous job in pulling everything together.
The collection offers a truly unique reading experience with a mix of neighbourhood drama, gossip, humour, mythology and magical realism. I found delight in each story and the subtle twists and turns along the way. This is a tasty snack of a book, and I think for many unfamiliar with micro and flash fiction, it could be a wonderful introduction to exploring the form.
Elaine Mead is a freelance writer and book reviewer, currently residing in Hobart, Tasmania. She is passionate about the ways we can use literature to learn from our experiences to become more authentic versions of ourselves and obsessed with showing you photos of her Dachshund puppy. You can find her online at www.wordswithelaine.com.
