Middle-aged, jaded and divorced, TV scriptwriter Harada is forced to set up home in his office, situated in a high-rise apartment block overlooking Tokyo''s busy Route 8. One night, nostalgic for his lost childhood, he decides to visit the entertainment district of Asakusa, the city''s dilapidated old downtown area, and there, at the theatre, he meets a man who looks exactly like his long-dead father. So begins Harada''s ordeal, as he''s thrust into a reality where his parents appear to be alive at the exact age they had been when they died so many years before. Although they may be apparitions, he takes solace in seeing them, in spite of the damage it seems to do to his health. Can Kei, the mysteriously fragile neighbour with whom Harada begins a tentative relationship, save him from the ghosts of his past? ''''An eerie ghost story written with hypnotic clarity: quickly paced, intelligent and haunting with passages of acute psychological insight... Yamada is amongst the best Japanese writers I have read.'' Bret Easton Ellis; ''Highly recommended... A cerebral and haunting ghost story - more a ''Whoizzit?'' than a ''Whodunnit?'' - which completely wrong-footed me.'' David Mitchell'' ''The author, one of Japan’s best scriptwriters, tells a story about what he knows best. This is an interesting glimpse into Japanese pop culture. His storyline is so poignant, so emotional, it will have you hoping every character will come out ahead.'' -- Heartland Reviews ''Yamada has gained accolades from substantial writers such as David Mitchell and Bret Easton Ellis, but this novel is more a gentle entertainment than a serious psychic disturbance.'' - James Urquhart, Daily Telegraph ''(A) story that pens in spare strokes a portrait of urban alienation. (...) Less subtle, unfortunately, are the vagaries of the translation into American English. (...) What survives, however, is a memorably uncanny tapestry, and a powerful atmosphere, of heat and rain and sorrow.'' - Steven Poole, The Guardian ''Strangers is written with a clarity I have come to recognise as Japanese.'' - Kate Kellaway, The Observer