This is a slim, dark Japanese novel, narrated by a teen girl, whose father is a policeman, and who is stationed in a small, fishing village. The book starts with a statement about how not much happens in such a small place, but the book is full of odd characters and each one has a backstory, and also a relationship to Japanese history. There's a lot in here, not sure I got it all, but glad that I read it. ( )

A new police chief has brought his family to a small Japanese town. There is a local election going on, a ghost ship sits in the bay, and his daughter Miki (the narrator) eavesdrops on every conversation between her father and the townspeople that she can.

Both Miki and her father learn why the town drunk is a drunk--and why his elderly father is always ready to take him home. They learn why the two businessmen (running against each other in the local election, and brothers-in-law) hate each other. Why kids shoot bottle rockets and an elderly lady's home. They learn why others might behave as they do--and why it is largely forgiven. They find out about the shameful things that occurred in the past. And they are actively participating in what future generations will consider shameful... ( )

Echo on the Bay has several just stunningly beautiful passages. It also has a interesting and for me slightly frustrating rambling tone which fits the story: you are reading the account of what a girl retelling an account of a conversation between her father and locals who range from sober, loosened up by drink, to dead drunk and all the while there are flashback-ish scenes that seem to be accounts from the main town gossips 'the silica four' and then on top of all of this actual events are unfolding. There is a lot going on. So the frustration was primarily keeping up with Masatsugu's story and flipping back and forth in the book to reread and reacquaint and make sense of things i thought were happening and then were not but I had misunderstood it. It took a long time to read this short novel.

Echo on the Bay touches on some very uncomfortable territory. It is graphic in some places and details things that I found to be repulsive this said it does so in a way that the book remains readable and it is not just there bluntly like raw meat in the way that, The People in the Trees was. Echo on the Bay is a great read and it is sensitive, disturbing, funny, and magical all at once. Highly recommended. There are some passages that are just stunning there is some serious craft going on here and I am looking forward to the next story in translation from Masatsugu Ono. ( )

A quietly devastating look at small-town Japan, this is a book that slowly unveils itself as it develops. It is narrated by Miki, the teenage daughter of a police officer who is sent to a small town beside a bay as the new local police chief. A quiet town, where nothing ever happens...

Populated by a cast of oddball characters, what emerges from the book is what Miki hears in conversations and stories as these characters meet and drink and pass the time. Miki herself is having an affair with her social studies teacher, but we slowly come to see a town where domestic violence and secrets abound, and where the worst characteristics of a nation come to the fore. A mysterious ship appears in the harbour, and when Miki's father finally gets round to checking it out the ship holds some truly shocking contents.

This isn't a big showy kind of novel. As I say, it slowly reveals itself to the reader, and the cumulative effect is a searing insight into the lives of a small town, and the secrets we all keep. The past, whether it be a nation in wartime or individuals in their own small lives, is something that we can never escape from. Haunting and unsettling, this is a definite recommend. 4.5 stars. ( )