Title:

The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

Author:

Keigo Higashino

Category:

Fiction / Literature

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

August 23, 2024
he Miracles of the Namiya General Store was an international bestseller, the front cover proclaims that over 12 million copies have been sold worldwide. The book was translated from the original Japanese. Higashino is known primarily as a mystery author (12 books in his Detective Kaga series, of which five have been translated to English, and 10 novels in his Detective Galileo series, of which five have been translated to English), but in The Miracles of the Namiya General Store, there is no whodunnit or mystery to resolve. The book does begin with a crime however.

Three young thieves have just fled from a robbery scene, but unfortunately their stolen getaway car has konked out, and now Shota, Kohei and Arsuya need a place to hideout for the night. When the morning commute begins, they can join the crowds and slip away. An abandoned old General Store appears to be the perfect hiding place, it clearly has not be occupied for years. Spend the night there, and the three young villains will be on their way in the morning rush. While lying low in the dusty confines of the Namiya General Store, they discover a letter placed in the milk crate - it turns out that the proprietor of the store, Mr. Namiya, once gained a bit of fame for dispensing advice to anyone in the town who dropped off a written note asking a question. At first the questions are jokes from kids, but soon people are asking Namiya about serious matters. Mr. Namiya felt responsible for writing thoughtful replies to anyone who asked his opinion. (The three thieves know about this history because they found a magazine in the store describing this situation.) When the three of them read the letter, it is from a woman who calls herself Moon Rabbit. She is training for the Olympics, but her boyfriend is in the hospital with a terminal disease. Moon Rabbit would rather focus on her boyfriend, but he insists that only her making the Olympics will make him happy; it is his dying wish to see her compete for Japan.

In order for this novel to work, Higashino employs some magic without much explanation. First, the boys soon realize that Moon Rabbit is living in 1980, while they are in modern times (The Miracles of the Namiya General Store was published in 2012). The second bit of magic is that time inside the General Store passes very slowly while the door is closed. This allows the boys to write a response, and then immediately receive a follow up letter from Moon Rabbit. There is only the vaguest of reasons for this magic; the reader just accepts the plot device as part of the story.

Moon Rabbit is trying to make the 1980 Olympic team, but the boys know (they can consult their smart phones) that Japan boycotts the Moscow Olympics to protest the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The best thing for Moon Rabbit to do is abandon her training and devote her time with the last few days of her boyfriend's life.

The novel is partitioned into five sections. All of the five stories involve Namiya and his advice-giving to different writers. The three young thieves disappear from the plot for a while. The characters in each of the five stories also has a connection to the Marumitsuen orphanage. The time-traveling element allows for a circular story, where the boys who begin the tale in 2012 give advice to people back in 1980, and of course what they say results in events that come back to effect their own lives.

It is a good read, but I wasn't enamored by the partitioning into five tales - each one brings a new set of characters and problems, which is then resolved before the next story begins. Yes, of the story involve a question for Mr. Namiya (or to the three thieves), but the stories are only loosely connected.