(tent) The Ghost in the Pasta Machine

When a woman falls in love, her preparations are as varied as the stars. A woman who lives in a hole by the sea polishes her sturdy molars—teeth strong enough to grind a man to bits. Office worker Seiko prepares an empty rice cracker tin to hide her tiny kobold-like lover, Mr. Yamaguchi. And poor Anko, constantly scolded by her drag queen friend Shūzō-chan, reminds herself not to be swayed by the call of a faithless man. In these 22 vivid vignettes—building on Kawakami’s earlier microfiction collection Zarazara—women find themselves caught in the deep, strange comfort of love’s undercurrents. Told with wit, tenderness, and a touch of the surreal, this collection captures the small moments when hearts falter, spin, and sometimes transform.