Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa

by Benjamin Constable

Tomomi Ishikawa is dead. But she refuses to rest in peace.

She has left her best friend, Ben, with a parting gift - a trail of clues and journal entries that lead him through Paris and New York, the cities she called home, in search of treasures of a very particular kind. Some will reveal startling beauty; others will reveal a startlingly murderous imagination at play...

All of a sudden her treasures start to feel like dead weight, his romantic adventure like murder-mystery, truth seems like fantasy and fiction like fact.

Tomomi Ishikawa is dead. At least, that's how her story goes...

• ISBN10: 1451667264
• ISBN13: 9781451667264
• Publish Date: 4 June 2013 (first published 1 July 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: The Gallery Press
• Imprint: Gallery Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[lovelybookshelf]

There's a lot of quirkiness in this book. The main character, Ben, is named after the author. At one point, Ben has this odd fixation with having "the dead on his shoes" after visiting Ground Zero. There's a non-talking, but quite communicative, imaginary cat who appears throughout. Then there's an unusual friendship with Tomomi Ishikawa, who has a deeply tragic past, and puts Ben on a twisted sort of scavenger hunt all over Paris and New York.

Right around the time I started to wonder "why is Ben continuing on with this game?" or "okay, I think things are about to slow" a character would answer my question, or the author would change direction. The author certainly has the mind of a reader, and at times it felt like he was in my head.

Constable writes with a lot of attention to detail, especially the use of language. I enjoyed the more realistic portrayal of communicating in a non-native language, and the awkwardness that can result. The dialogue always felt very real, very natural, like overhearing a conversation. And Constable writes some amazing sentences! My favorite: "Now the room was empty and the hushed sound of a hundred people reading dissolved into a quieter silence."

This book was an adventure, to be sure. But I was left feeling sort of... toyed with. Ben would say these random, mundane things and I'd think, "What?! Is this going to be important? Will this have a deeper meaning?" I was on pins and needles so much of the time, but I'm not sure where it led. A few times I got downright angry, and toward the end I felt there were almost too many twists. When I finished, I was left with a kind of surreal, what-just-happened? feeling. And I'm not sure if I'm ticked off by it, or completely and utterly delighted!

Discussion questions for Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa are included at the end of the book, as well as a few "Enhance Your Book Club" ideas.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

[Lianne]

I received a copy of this novel from Simon & Schuster Canada in exchange for an honest review.

It took a few chapters to get into the story but once I was acquainted with the characters–especially Ben Constable–and the situation he finds himself in, Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa was an interesting novel that I couldn’t put down. On one level it’s pretty whimsical and quirky but it can also be quite bizarre and dark as well, especially when Ben’s adventures takes a rather mysterious turn. The blurred lines between fact and fiction plays a major role in this novel and feeds into the magical realism of the overall story.

Readers who enjoy magical realism, the whimsical side of Paris and New York City, a good mystery, Japanese literature (a la Haruki Murakami) and French movies like Amelie and Jeux d’Enfants should check this novel out.

My complete review of the novel was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2013/05/28/review-three-lives-of-tomomi-ishikawa/