He ' does not look like the kind of man who would buy a Chinese prostitute in a love hotel-and certainly no one who would administer an unmerciful pounding to such a woman'. In a nearby neighbourhood, Shirakawa, works on the IT systems in his office, annoyed he hurt his hand beating the girl up. It’s Tokyo at night and it’s a completely different place to the day. Voluntarily went into a sporadic coma, though seems to wake to eat and defecate. Her beautiful sister has been sleeping for two months now. She’s reluctant to go home and Takahashi, in another break from the jazz, manages to tease out of her what’s distressing her. The rest of the night Mari tries to make the time pass. It's important to combine the two in just the right amount.” “ In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. We discover how Kaoru became the night manager and how she is determined to make the man who beat up the girl pay for his crime. It’s bloody, but Mari manages to calm the girl down and she’s later claimed by her pimp, who arrives on his motorcycle. Mari wearily accompanies Kaoru to the hotel and meets a terrified young Chinese prostitute who has been beaten up, had all her clothes and money stolen by her john. She needs a Chinese speaker urgently and Takahashi has put her name forward to help. Takahashi goes back to his all night jazz practice session and leaves Mari to herself, but again she is interrupted by a large, female ex-wrestler Kaoru, now night manager of a Love Hotel, Alphaville.

(True)Īt once the book is unnatural, the conversation far too animated and detailed to be realistic, but nevertheless a pleasure. She’s interrupted by a talkative trombonist, young Takahashi, who once had a thing for her beautiful sister, Eri and who complains you can never get crisp toast in Denny’s. Published April 2008 by Vintage (first published 2004)Įver read a book and realised a few paragraphs in that you have already read it? Sneaky publishers are always changing covers these days and somehow I thought I was buying a ‘new’ Murakami even though his new ones are in fact his very first novels before his breakthrough with 'A Wild Sheep Chase'.Īfter Dark is a curious book, I must have blanked it because it had no lasting impression, except I remembered it began in a Denny’s in Tokyo with a student, Mari Esai reading a textbook late into the night.

Paperback, First Vintage International Edition, 244 pages

Haruki murakami dark night