N.P. by Banana Yoshimoto

In N.P., Banana Yoshimoto’s enchanting novel of uncanny subtlety, style, magic, and mystery, a celebrated Japanese writer has committed suicide, leaving behind a collection of stories written in English. But the book, itself titled N.P., may never be published in his native Japan: each translator who takes up the ninety-eighth story chooses death, too—including Kazami Kano’s boyfriend, Shoji. Over the course of an astonishing summer, she will discover the truth behind the ninety-eighth story and she will come to believe that “everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.”