This is Amiko , Do You Copy by Natsuko Imamura

This is Amiko, Do You Copy? by Natsuko Imamura

Japanese Fiction

Original title – こちらあみ子

Translator – Hitomi Yoshio

Source – Review copy

This is an early book from the Japanese writer Natsuko Imamura she has been nominated three times for the Akutagawa Prize one of the biggest book prizes in Japan. I have reviewed the third book she wasp for the prize for on the blog before the woman in the Purple Skirt which won the prize she has written aa number of other books and won several prizes for her fiction. She lives in Osaka with her husband and Daughter. This is a odd little novel around one odd little girl Amiko and we see her grow into a Teen

AMIKO GREW UP AS THE SECOND CHILD IN THE TANAKA FAMILY until the day she moved out at the age of fifteen. She had a father, a mother, and an older brother who became a juvenile delinquent.

Back when Amiko was in elementary school, Mother taught a calligraphy class at home. The classroom was small and simple, with three long rectangular tables arranged in an eight-mat tatami room where Mother’s mother used to sleep. Now the floor was covered with a red rug from corner to corner.Next to this room was the so-called Buddha room, where the butsudan was placed, and across the hall was the kitchen-dining room. The classroom was connected to a veranda, and that’s where the calligraphy

Her step mother taught Calligraphy this is where she meets the boy she falls for.

I said this is the story of Amiko. I was a few pages in and said to myself Amiko reminds me of some of the people I have looked after and supported she has some condition whether it is Autism or on the ASD spectrum or some other condition. She struggles to read the world around her. She has a trait of obsession early on in the book it is a boy that her stepmother is teaching Calligraphy too this is more than a childhood crush it is obsessive in its nature. That sort of obsession and inability people on the ASD spectrum can have to find it had to read social traits and ticks and emotions or even be unable to hold back their own emotional feelings. She has a walkie talk and this is another thing that makes you think she has autism the obsessive way she uses it is a portrait of a girl but a girl alone for none of those around her seem to see her as a person with Neurodiversity. Her view of the world is strange. Even the flat way at times the story is told it makes it seem like we are in her world at times there is a clinical nature at times to the prose style. A girl misunderstood it makes you wonder how people with Autism fair in Japan she is caught as a naughty bullied child and she isn’t it upset me at times.

But Amiko, who ate like a bird, couldn’t even finish the small bowl before her. With two or three bites left, she threw her pink chopsticks onto the table. Mother tried to offer her some kara-age fried chicken, another favourite of hers, but Amiko shooed away the plate, saying, “No more.” She then grabbed the box of chocolate cookies that Father had given her and placed it on her lap. “This is what I’m having!” she announced excitedly as she opened the lid with a big heart on it. After licking the chocolate coating off the surface of every cookie, she felt so full she could barely breathe.

I loved this description of her eating so many signs of her having some sort of ASD like symptoms

As you can see this girl grows in a third person description which is suited to this type of book it works well in the book The Incident in the Night. That flat way of viewing the world that Autistic way of not being able to see social traits and ticks but also struggling with your own emotions and how to show how you feel about people either seem distant or over the top and stifling at times was caught so well, I loved her little traits like the Walkie Talkies is just perfect and the sort of obsession some would have whether it was that all just talking via text as it is easier. This of course grabbed me as it is my job but I have a neurodiversity condition and can see in hindsight how it has affected me over the years so could connect with Amiko and how people just misunderstood her so much. If you like her other book The Girl in the Purple Skirt which dealt with Obsession really well you will connect with this book. It is also a perfect choice for next month’s January in Japan event it is part of a series of Japanese novellas that Pushkin has brought out by contemporary writers in Japan I have a couple more from the series to review. Have you read any of the books from this writer?

Winstons score – A solid little novella around a young girl growing up with an ASD condition.