Spring Garden, by Tomoka Shibasaki

Staff review by Chris Saliba

A mysterious sky-blue house brings together two strangers in a nearby apartment block.

Divorced three years ago, Taro lives alone in a block of eight flats. The flats have a slightly eerie, desolate feel as they are slated to be torn down and replaced with new ones. Taro is an introverted young man, still in his early thirties, and he spends much time thinking about his father who recently died. Next to the block of flats there are several other interesting buildings, most notably a sky-blue house, an architectural curio from the 1960s.

When Taro strikes up a friendship with the unconventional Nishi, a woman who lives in the flat above him, he learns that she has an obsession with the sky-blue house. In her youth, when she was at school, she remembered a picture book that was especially devoted to this blue house and was called Spring Garden. The book was put together by the original occupants, an outré, arty type of couple. The curious book featured pictures of the couple lounging around the various rooms of the house looking enigmatic. Nishi by chance came across the blue-sky house again when searching for a new place to live and so she moved into Taro's block of flats, with its direct view of the house.

The friendship between Taro and Nishi is cemented as they become intrigued by the curious book, Spring Garden, and speculate about what the house must be like inside. When a new family takes up residence in the sky-blue house, they get their chance.

Tomoka Shibasaki's 2014 novel, beautifully translated by Polly Barton, is a sensitive and intimate account of a spontaneous friendship between strangers, set against a delicately drawn backdrop of a transitory and ethereal urban environment. The descriptions of the mysterious sky-blue house, the other odd buildings, the lane ways, streets and idiosyncratic gardens, with their trees and wildly growing vines, will appeal to anyone who has been intrigued by the cultural and emotional significance of houses.

Spring Garden evokes feelings of isolation, introspection, and fleeting human connection in the midst of a densely populated city. A gorgeously delicate and intimate read. 

Spring Garden, by Tomoka Shibasaki. Published by Pushkin. ISBN: 9781782272700 RRP: $19.99

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