THE HEALING HIPPO OF HINODE PARK

A collection of vignettes centered around the families living in a five-story condominium near Tokyo.

Five stories intertwine in this novel that moves up from the first to fifth floor homes in the Advance Hill condominium building shortly after it’s built. Each story offers a new, carefully wrought point of view from one of the residents in that condo. Schoolchildren like Kanato and Yuya who have just moved to the area; a mother, Sawa, who’s trying to figure out her place in the world now that her daughter has started kindergarten; Chiharu, a 20-something wedding planner who is lonely and hoping for love; and Kazuhiko, a late-middle-aged magazine editor who has decided to move closer to his mother in the hopes of being able to help her. What ties them all together is a small, stationary children’s ride at the park: a hippo named Kabahiko. Legend in the neighborhood is that if you touch Kabahiko on the part of his body where you yourself are injured, you will be healed. And each narrator discovers the truth of this—but it isn’t magic. Instead, healing comes in the way in which each person’s interactions with Kabahiko creates introspection that leads to enlightenment and a better understanding of the wider community. As Kazuhiko notes, “The thought of strangers living under the same roof, each with their own hopes and burdens, warmed my heart a little.” Together, this is a sweet—perhaps overly sweet—set of stories that offers up the sentiment that sometimes what ails you can be traced back to a problematic point of view. But each story alone is enough to spark thoughtfulness and a small glow of happiness.

Read them one at a time.