Mild Vertigo

Housewife Natsumi leads a small, unremarkable life in amodern Tokyo apartment with her husband and two sons:she does the laundry, goes on trips to the supermarket,visits friends and gossips with neighbours. Tracing herconversations and interactions with her family and friendsas they blend seamlessly into her own infernally buzzinginternal monologue,Mild Vertigoexplores the dizzyingreality of being unable to locate oneself in the endlessstream of minutiae that forms a lonely life confined to amiddle-class home, where both everything and nothinghappens. With shades of Clarice Lispector, Elena Ferranteand Lucy Ellmann, this verbally acrobatic novel by theesteemed novelist, essayist and critic Mieko Kanai - whosework enjoys a cult status in Japan - is a disconcerting andradically imaginative portrait of selfhood in late-stagecapitalist society.