Abstract

Workaholic Saeki is a 50-year-old marketing rep for an ad agency. He’s just won a lucrative new contract to promote the Internet startup GigaForce, his 24-year-old daughter is about to be married, and he sees nothing but smooth sailing ahead. Then in early autumn he begins to experience memory lapses, dizziness, and hallucinations. His wife Emiko thinks it might be stress-induced depression and urges him to see a psychiatrist, who diagnoses him with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Saeki briefly considers suicide, but decides instead to accept whatever help medical science has to offer and live out his life with the woman who has stood by him through 25 years of marriage. He attempts to carry on with business as usual, hoping to at least make it through the January launch of the GigaForce campaign and his daughter’s wedding at the end of the same month, but his memory problems lead to increasingly frequent errors and tardiness. One of his subordinates observes him taking an Alzheimer’s medication at work and informs his superior, who pressures him to accept voluntary retirement. He refuses and is demoted, but once his daughter’s wedding is over, he submits his resignation. Two months later his daughter gives him a granddaughter, but his illness continues to progress. By the end of April he has reached the state he most feared: he no longer recognizes his wife . . . A wrenching tale of a man struggling to go on with his life in the face of a devastating illness. The film version of the book, produced by and starring Ken Watanabe, won a Japan Academy Prize for Excellence in 2006.

Author’s Information

Hiroshi Ogiwara (1956–) was a voracious reader of science fiction in grade school and of mysteries in middle school. He claims the influence of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. for the sense of humor he brings to his writing. After college he went to work for an ad agency and became a copywriter, but in his mid-thirties he struck out on his own as a freelancer. He made his literary debut at 39 when his first novel Ororo batake de tsukamaete (Catcher in the Ororo) won the 1997 Shosetsu Subaru New Writers’ Award. His novel about early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, Ashita no kioku (Tomorrow’s Memory), was awarded the Yamamoto Shugoro Prize in 2005. He has been short-listed for the Naoki Prize several times, including for his 2005 novel Ano hi ni doraibu (Driving That Day), about a banker turned taxi driver. A highly versatile author, he brings surprises to each new work as he continues to turn out bestsellers. In 2016 he received the Naoki Prize for Umi no mieru rihatsuten (The Barbershop by the Sea).