The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World
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Average rating4.3
The international bestselling novel, sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami—now in paperback When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of time from that date onward: Everything is relative to March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami tore Japan apart, and when grief took hold of her life. Yui struggles to continue on, alone with her pain. Then, one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone booth spreads, people travel to it from miles around. Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone booth, too. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Instead she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of her mother’s death. Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is the signpost pointing to the healing that can come after.
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So there's an actual phone booth (disconnected) in a garden in Otsuchi that has become a spot to help people who have lost loved ones heal. They come, they sit in the garden a bit, and “talk” to their deceased loved ones through this disconnected phone. Basically it lets them say the things they were never able to say when they were alive. There's a whole Wikipedia article here about it, and an Atlas Obscura article on it as well, with pictures. I thought this is a touching, fascinating idea, and was prepared for something to make me cry.
I dunno, this book just didn't click with me. It was fine? But I just never felt connected with any of the characters. Yui lost her mother and daughter before the story starts, and she meets Takeshi at the Wind Phone, there grieving for his lost wife. Takeshi has a daughter Hana, and the three of them grapple with what a relationship together means while also healing from their loss. It's a fine story, just not one I really wanted. For a phone that talks to dead relatives, I was expecting more drama, more tears, more touching heartbreak. I was actually a little bored with the story told, but it was fine enough.
An interesting premise without an interesting story, for me anyway. Someone coping with loss and rebuilding their life may get more out of it than I did, however.
