The Mysterious Ship and Other Writings

A ship with no visible sailors appears offshore, frightening one town and transforming another. Makino Shin’ichi’s opening tale turns a ghostly mystery into a fable of curiosity, exchange, and the cost of fear.

The accompanying writings enter more intimate territory. A writer confronts his own literary ambitions, argues with a visiting painter about love, discovers the books his mother reads in secret, and describes a learned foreign friend whose unusual experiments make an uncomfortable demand on him.

Domestic comedy runs through these pages: a small boy defeats his father’s attempts at discipline, a husband and wife watch a play about remarriage, and a restless student’s evening with an older young woman becomes a sequence of embarrassment and unexpected tenderness. Even exercise becomes a struggle with sorrow and passion.