(tent) Smooth, Hot, Sweet, and Bitter

A girl envisions a strange, dreamlike kind of sex. An invisible cord still binds women’s wrists, quietly stealing their freedom. A ravenous infant draws not just milk, but lust from its mother’s breast. Men whisper words of seduction to women across a thousand years. As these stories unfold, a flood begins—overflowing the boundary between the real and the unreal, eventually engulfing those who carry “it” within them. In this bold, genre-defying novel, Hiromi Kawakami explores the mystery of female sexuality and the depth of women’s lives as they love, give birth, grow old, and persist. Four interconnected, enchanting tales—named after the classical elements Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire—trace the beautiful, contradictory textures of desire: smooth, hot, sweet, and bitter.