After Dark (Vintage International) - Softcover

"After Dark [is] hypnotically eerie, sometimes even funny, but most of all, it's [a book] that keeps ratcheting up the suspense." --The Washington Post Book World

"After Dark is a streamlined, hushed ensemble piece. . . . Standing above the common gloom, Murakami detects phosphorescence everywhere, but chiefly in the auras around people, which glow brightest at night and when combined." --The New York Times Book Review

"Murakami is masterful with symbolism. . . . Night . . . can't blacken the ever-shifting shutter speeds of Murakami's cockeyed Kodak. . . . It is straight-ahead jazz with a quiet grace." --The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A bittersweet novel that will satisfy the most demanding literary taste. . . . Murakami's fiction reminds us that the world is broad, that myths are universal-and that while we sleep, the world out there is moving in mysterious and unpredictable ways." --The San Francisco Chronicle

"Hypnotically eerie, sometimes even funny, but most of all, it's [a book] that keeps ratcheting up the suspense." --The Washington Post Book World

"After Dark is a gripping dream. . . . In Murakami's hands, hope is nothing more nor less than a deep, cleansing breath." --The Boston Globe

"What you'll love: The book's spare yet eerily atmospheric scenes will fester under your skin, poking at your equilibrium long after you've finished reading." --The Washington Post

"There's a dreamlike quality to Haruki Murakami's mesmerizing new novel, [where] amid the alienation are flickers of hopefulness springing from seemingly random, serendipitous human interactions and connections. . . . Like a latter-day Walker Percy or Albert Camus, Murakami raises questions about perception and existence [and] captures the palpable loneliness and essential unfathomability at the heart of modern life." --The Christian Science Monitor

"This strange, mesmerizing, spell-binding, voyeuristic novel is impossible to put down." --The Providence Journal

"A metaphysical mystery. . . . After Dark deftly explores existentialist notions of purpose, control, and identity." --Elle

"Gripping. . . . Creepy!" --Wired

"In After Dark, night seems to be where Murakami was headed all along. . . . He has a natural curiosity about people, a belief that they contain wonders, perhaps none so great as the capacity for human connection." --Newsday

In After Dark—a gripping novel of late night encounters—Murakami’s trademark humor and psychological insight are distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery.

Nineteen-year-old Mari is waiting out the night in an anonymous Denny’s when she meets a young man who insists he knows her older sister, thus setting her on an odyssey through the sleeping city. In the space of a single night, the lives of a diverse cast of Tokyo residents—models, prostitutes, mobsters, and musicians—collide in a world suspended between fantasy and reality. Utterly enchanting and infused with surrealism, After Dark is a thrilling account of the magical hours separating midnight from dawn.