Parade: A Folktale

About

On a summer afternoon, Tsukiko and her former high school teacher prepare sōmen noodles together. "Tell me a story from long ago," Sensei says. What follows is a folktale — or perhaps a memory, or perhaps something else entirely — about a parade that passes through a town, carrying with it all the accumulated regrets and confessions of the people who watch it go by. Hiromi Kawakami, whose Strange Weather in Tokyo established her international reputation, returns to the same characters with a story that blurs the boundary between the mundane and the mythic. Sensei and Tsukiko's relationship — intimate, elliptical, defined by what remains unsaid — provides the frame for a tale that is ethereal and deeply resonant. A parable about memory, time, and the stories we tell to make sense of what we've lost — composed with the delicacy of a folktale and the emotional precision of a confession.