At the Edge of the Woods
"Balances wonder and disquiet with incomparable grace and precision...Ono continues to captivate." --Bryan Washington, author of Memorial
In an unnamed foreign country, a family of three is settling into a house at the edge of the woods. But something is off. A sound, at first like coughing and then like laughter, emanates from the nearby forest. Fantastical creatures, it is said, live out there in a castle where feudal lords reigned and Resistance fighters fell. When the mother, fearing another miscarriage, returns to her family's home to give birth to a second child, father and son are left to their own devices in rural isolation. Haunted by the ever-present woods, they look on as the TV flashes with floods and processions of refugees. The boy brings a mysterious half-naked old woman home, but before the father can make sense of her presence, she disappears. A mail carrier with gnashing teeth visits to deliver nothing but gossip of violence. A tree stump in the yard refuses to die, no matter how generously the poison is applied.
An allegory for alienation and climate catastrophe unlike any other, At the Edge of the Woods is a psychological tale where myth and fantasy are not the dominion of childhood innocence but the poison fruit borne of the paranoia and violence of contemporary life.
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"Ono's immersive narrative accrues insights about the nature of violence and mercy... an accomplished work by a masterful writer. --Publishers Weekly
"An eerie allegory of climate apocalypse and unnatural nature...full of dark laughter, figures that appear and disappear, sounds of violence and gnashing teeth." --The Millions (Most Anticipated 2022)
"A surreal tale of a world torn apart by disaster...Written in startling, imaginative vignettes, At the Edge of the Woods is an evocative terrifying story about a family's efforts to survive a crisis." --Rebecca Hussey, Foreword Reviews
"At the Edge of the Woods balances wonder and disquiet with incomparable grace and precision; in this novel about a family navigating their unsteady future, Masatsugu Ono illustrates modern life's horrors alongside the wonder of the unknown. Ono is one of our great chroniclers of love, with all of its possibility and dread, and the worlds this novel inhabits are both unsettling and awe-inspiring. At the Edge of the Woods is beautiful and seductive. Ono continues to captivate." --Bryan Washington, author of MemorialPraise for Masatsugu Ono
"[Ono] is a master storyteller" --The Japan Times
"Cross García Márquez and Simenon and set the piece on the Sea of Japan, and you'll have a feel for Ono's latest... Fans of Kenzaburo Oe's Death by Water and Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 will enjoy Ono's enigmatic story." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on Echo on the Bay
"[A] slim, albeit mighty, narrative that begins comically wry and ends with shocking resonance...Understated, yet unforgettably stunning." --Booklist (starred review) on Echo on the Bay
"Ono...is so skilled at conveying emotion that Takeru and his world are mesmerizing, and often heart-rending." --The New Yorker on Lion Cross Point
"A mesmeric fusion of fable, ghost story and haunting depiction of family trauma....unsettling and quietly moving." --San Francisco Chronicle on Lion Cross Point
