NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A
young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion
and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her.
She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls
1Q84 --"Q is for 'question mark.' A world that bears a question."
Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect
ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its
unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come
unraveled.
As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this
single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind
them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique
vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the
metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for
abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet
ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent
television-fee collector.
A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a
dystopia to rival George Orwell's--1Q84 is Haruki Murakami's most
ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan,
and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered
contemporary writers.
