May 1, 2022
Japanese senior citizens become possessed by the spirit of radiation. Japanese author and visual artist Kobayashi's first novel to be published in English unfolds from the perspective of an unnamed divorc�e who lives in a Tokyo apartment with her mother, her younger sister, and her 13-year-old daughter. Though everyone in the city is excited for the impending 2020 Olympics, tensions are running high due to Trinity--a previously unknown ailment with unclear causes that is plaguing the elderly. The condition initially presents as dementia, but as it progresses, those afflicted pick up shiny black rocks from the ground, which they hold to their ears as though listening to them speak. The individuals then begin hoarding radioactive objects, behaving erratically, and spouting impossibly detailed, seemingly firsthand knowledge about radiation's discovery and world events in which the particles have played a role. Given the relative recency of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the public treats those who are "going Trinity" as potential terrorists, so the protagonist panics when her mother starts showing symptoms and then disappears from her bed. Though Kobayashi's core conceit is intriguing, the book as a whole lacks focus and direction. A subplot involving the narrator's waning fertility and increasingly desperate use of a cybersex app also called Trinity feels hastily appended and tonally jarring, while efforts to thematically link Greek myth, Olympic history, and the nuclear arms race feel unnecessarily contrived. Choppy, digressive narration only compounds the fragmentation. An ambitious but muddled meditation on the Atomic Age.
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Starred review from July 22, 2022
Set in Japan preceding the 2020 Olympics, this compelling novel weaves together the past, the present, and a possible future in a panoply of memory, experience, and social unrest. The narrative centers on the relationships among a woman and the mother, sister, and daughter with whom she shares an apartment. The direct, engaging writing pulls the reader into the plight of the main character, who's disturbed by a recent trend involving older adults, seeming victims of dementia, who have taken to collecting radioactive objects, speaking to black stones, and listening to disembodied messages. This phenomenon is known as Trinity. In examining the Trinity disease, the author deftly combines the history of nuclear radiation and nuclear disasters (particularly the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster) with the history of the Olympic games to construct a backdrop to looming social crisis. As the protagonist finds out more about her mother and her mother's seeming involvement with Trinity, the mother also makes discoveries in her personal life. Interestingly, lace and the nature of its looping construction forms a metaphor for the threads of interrelationship throughout. VERDICT The Mishima and Akutagawa prize--winning Kobayashi (Breakfast with Madame Curie) examines the shifting sands of memory and interconnected identity in a fluid landscape shaped by nuclear radiation, social media, and social connection. Highly recommended.--Henry Bankhead
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July 15, 2022
Tokyo-based author/artist Kobayashi makes an intriguing, albeit uneven, translated-into-English debut, enabled by Canadian Bergstrom. The consequences of Japan's 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are manifest in three generations of an all-female Tokyo family. Kobayashi's novel takes place on a single day, following the schedule of a divorced working woman sandwiched between generations. Her mother suffers from what seems to be dementia, but something far more sinister is affecting the country's elders. Her 13-year-old relies on headphones tuned to a band called DEATH BE NOT PROUD to detach. As the 2020 Tokyo Olympics approach, the erratic, dangerous behavior of the country's elderly lead to reports of "the Trinity disease" spreading radioactive damage. The mother disappears from day care and the daughter goes completely incommunicado, instigating a frantic search. The triplicate title--beyond the radioactive illness--is further explicated halfway as the Christian trinity that "offered . . . no solace"; the first nuclear bomb detonation site in White Sands, New Mexico; and a cybersex site the woman relies on for intimate connection. Ironically, rather than illuminate, these reflections amplify superfluous tangents in an already disjointed, disappointing narrative.
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