The Letters - Hardcover

Yumoto, Kazumi

3.97

1,425 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374343837 ISBN 13: 9780374343835

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2002

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By the award-winning author of The Friends

When Chiaki learns of the death of her and her mother’s former landlady, Mrs. Yanagi, she feels compelled to go to the funeral, although she hasn’t seen Mrs. Yanagi in years. As she prepares for the trip, she also begins a journey through memory, beginning right after her father’s death, when her mother took an apartment at Poplar House. Chiaki, six at the time, is overwhelmed by the recent changes, falls ill, and cannot attend school. Mrs. Yanagi ends up looking after her during the daytime. The landlady initially frightens her new charge, but as Chiaki spends more time with her, the two begin to form an odd alliance. One day Mrs. Yanagi tells Chiaki that she has been charged with a divine mission to carry letters to the dead when she goes to the grave herself. Inspired, Chiaki then begins a tentative one-way correspondence with her father, diligently entrusting her letters to the landlady. And it’s through remembering this time of her life that the grown Chiaki is able to confront her confusion about who she is now.

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From the Inside Flap:

When Chiaki learns that her mother?s former landlady, Mrs. Yanagi, has died, she decides to attend the funeral. The last time she saw Mrs. Yanagi was when she lived in her apartment building when she was a little girl. Chiaki takes a trip back through time and remembers what her life was like shortly after her father?s death. At first young Chiaki is scared of old Mrs. Yanagi, but as time goes on, they form a close relationship. Then Mrs. Yanagi reveals that she has a special mission in life. She will deliver letters to the dead when she herself passes away. She keeps the letters in a drawer and when it is filled, then she will die. She warns Chiaki that anyone else who looks in the drawer will carry the burden of delivering the letters instead of her. Chiaki starts writing letters to her father every day to overcome her loss. Years later, Chiaki is unprepared for the surprises that await her at Mrs. Yanagi?s funeral and the unexpected turn her life will take from that point on.

About the Author:

Kazumi Yumoto is the author of The Spring Tone and The Friends, which won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction. She lives in Tokyo, Japan.

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