THE PHONE BOOTH AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan. Twenty thousand people perished. How does one remember? How does one mourn? With gentle reverence and journalistic reserve, performer and artist Traci Kato-Kiriyama captures the heady mix of raw pain, sadness, and fantasy in this novel on grief and resilience. When Yui loses both her mother and daughter in the disaster, she is inconsolable until she hears of an abandoned phone booth in a garden that allows mourners to pick up the receiver and speak to the dead. Survivors from hundreds of miles around make the pilgrimage to use the phone. Based on true events, the audiobook asks that the listener not search for the phone booth, which still exists, but listen carefully to the sounds of healing. B.P. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2021]