{"product_id":"i-called-him-necktie-paperback","title":"I Called Him Necktie - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The best of the best from this year's bountiful harvest of uncommonly strong offerings ... Deeply original.\" --\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Milena Michiko Flasar's beautiful novel ... is a story about freedom and responsibility, and it results in an almost Sartrean meditation.\"--\u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Flasar's exquisite, finely wrought novel is both a prose poem and a parable about how we deflect, defer and disconnect from life, and what is needed before we can bravely embrace it again.\"\u003cbr\u003e-- Monique Truong, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Salt\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBitter in the Mouth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwenty-year-old Taguchi Hiro has spent the last two years of his life living as a hikikomori--a shut-in who never leaves his room and has no human interaction--in his parents' home in Tokyo. As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life around him from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a middle-aged salaryman who has lost his job but can't bring himself to tell his wife, and shows up every day in a suit and tie to pass the time on a nearby bench. As Hiro and Tetsu cautiously open up to each other, they discover in their sadness a common bond. Regrets and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams, come to the surface until both find the strength to somehow give a new start to their lives. This beautiful novel is moving, unforgettable, and full of surprises. The reader turns the last page feeling that a small triumph has occurred.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMilena Michiko Flasar\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1980, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an Austrian father. She lives in Vienna. \u003ci\u003eI Called Him Necktie\u003c\/i\u003e won the 2012 Austrian Alpha Literature Prize.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51373873987807,"sku":"9781939931146","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/Z-tYH3rEMp9781939931146.webp?v=1789164509","url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/products\/i-called-him-necktie-paperback","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}