BANANA YOSHIMOTO'S: 'SWEET HEREAFTER'

Like her mentor Stephen King, 2013 was a big year for Yoshimoto Banana. Whilst King returned to form with Doctor Sleep which revisits the character of Dan Torrence from The Shining, Yoshimoto published three new novels and at least one collection of essays. Sweet Hereafter is also significant because Yoshimoto also renews her collaboration with artist Hara Masumi who designed the front cover. Sweet Herafter is typical Yoshimoto Banana. The protagonist Sayoko is involved in a car accident and, whilst she survives, her boyfriend Yoichi is killed. It is the type of story that takes the reader back to Yoshimoto's debut in 1988... Yoichi is a sculptor who works with metal and wood and is more famous overseas than he is in Japan. During Sayako's near death experience she is reunited with her dog but not Yoichi. She is persuaded to come back to this world by her late grandfather who drives her on his Harley Davidson. After a slow recovery and rehab during which she looks like Frankenstein, she takes on the job of looking after the legacy of Yoichi's work. This means she spends her time between this work in Kyoto and her doctor's appointments in Tokyo.

Sayako has been changed by her experience, she notices that after Yoichi’s death she has started taking on some of his personality… She becomes less feminine and looks like some kind of lesbian so no-one tries to pick her up. Because she is busy working or else in hospital there is no chance really to meet anyone. She has vivid memories of the rainbow coloured world she returned from… She sees the rainbow as the bridge on which her grandfather brought her back. But her body returned before her soul so her body has been mostly on auto-pilot. At the local bar, the owner Shingami san won’t allow her to drink too much. He jokes that he needs to keep his customers alive. When she was younger and drinking heavily she didn’t really like his bar. Now she appreciates its atmosphere much more. She realises since her return from the other world that the price of living in a world of such beauty is the energy you bring with you (69). This world however is shared by the dead as well as the living. 

The first ghost she ever saw was a young woman sitting at a window. She didn't move or make eye contact, she just smiled and flicked her hair. At the bank she Sayako saw a young man coming out the wrong door with a bicycle. He saw her staring at the window and started talking to her. She realizes she is living in a world shared by both the dead and the living (59). It turns out the young woman was his mother. She wishes that Yoichi was watching over her in the same way… The woman died of a weak heart. The young woman she sees in the window is how she looked when she was young. He asks her inside the house. She wonders if she can stay and he says yes… She realizes that he can read her mind. She also realizes that she herself is living the life of a ghost, half alive and half dead looking after the unfinished business of her dead boyfriend. 

With references to Frankenstein and zombies, Sweet Hereafter is a response to tragedy and the painful process of recovery that follows. In her afterword to the book she thanks those readers who send her letters saying how  much her books have helped them. In the aftermath of the tsunami and the accident at Fukushima, she initially wanted to go and help out as a volunteer. Instead, she chose to write this book. Whilst there is criticism of her books as being light and filled with New Age fantasies there is a real sense that these books can 'speak' to those who have been damaged and are looking for ways to rebuild their sense of self.