Written by Lindsey Williams
I was not very far into Rainbirds, the debut novel by Clarissa Goenawan, when I realized that this book was something special. The story follows Ren Ishida, a graduate student from Tokyo who is nearing his degree, when he gets the news that his older sister, Keiko, has been murdered.
Ren travels alone to Akakawa, the small town in which his sister had lived in for the past several years, where he picks up the pieces of her life and struggles to find a way to fit them into his own. Initially intending his stay to last just a few days to speak with the police and collect Keiko’s things, Ren ends up falling into a series of strange and fortuitous events which extend his “visit” to a more permanent living situation. He takes up Keiko’s old teaching position, her old living arrangements, and finds himself falling in with her old coworkers and acquaintances.
Slowly, the pieces of Keiko’s life that she had never shared with Ren begin to unravel and expose themselves. Though Ren and Keiko spoke often on the phone prior to his death, and though he believed they were close, Ren begins to discover facets of his sister’s life that he had never seen before. As time progresses and the local police have still not found Keiko’s killer, Ren must follow the information from these discoveries and his own intuition in an attempt uncover his sister’s murderer.
The most striking thing about this novel is the atmosphere that Goenawan was able to masterfully create. Within the first few pages, I was immediately transported to this small town alongside Ren. The mood is incredibly well-crafted and thoughtful, leaving me with the subtle but haunting feeling of this small town and its residents resonating within me long after I set the book down. This book crept its way into me, in the very best way.
I also appreciated the book’s complex observations on grief, love, and loss. Though the plot follows what is technically a murder mystery, Rainbirds does not read like your average thriller. Told in a literary style with sparse and stunning prose, it is a slow-burning yet moving exploration of what losing a sibling, and at the same time finding out more about them than you ever considered, means for the life of those left behind. The sibling relationship felt authentic, and Ren’s struggle to discover what his life looks like without his sister was complex and kept me thoroughly engaged. I loved that as the story progressed, Ren not only received new glimpses into his sister’s life, but the reader received glimpses of Ren and Keiko’s childhoods together. These flashbacks helped frame the present-day plot in a beautiful way, and fleshed out the relationship between brother and sister beautifully.
Rainbirds also explores the complexities of family secrets, not just of Ren and Keiko’s family, but of the secondary characters in the novel as well. I always appreciate books that closely examine the inner-workings and veiled truths of families, and Rainbirds managed to do this in a way that was both lyrical and page-turning.
I read the majority of this stunning debut while on an overnight trip to a small town up north, huddled in bed while snow began to fall softly outside. While Rainbirds does take place over the course of a summer, the weather and mood felt fitting. This quiet, beautiful novel is not one to be missed – and if you get the chance, read it while on a trip to a small town.
Will you be picking up Rainbirds at your local bookstore or library? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Ren Ishida is nearly finished with graduate school when he receives news of his sister Keiko’s sudden death. She was viciously stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister’s affairs, still failing to understand why she chose to abandon the family and Tokyo for this desolate town years ago.
But Ren soon finds himself picking up where Keiko left off, accepting both her teaching position at a local cram school and the bizarre arrangement of free lodging at a wealthy politician’s mansion in exchange for reading to the man’s catatonic wife.
As he comes to know the figures in Akakawa, from the enigmatic politician to his fellow teachers and a rebellious, alluring student named Rio, Ren delves into his shared childhood with Keiko and what followed, trying to piece together what happened the night of her death. Haunted in his dreams by a young girl who is desperately trying to tell him something, Ren struggles to find solace in the void his sister has left behind.”
This title was provided for review by Soho Press.
