Men Without Women

A cosmetic surgeon confronts his own imperfections in love for the first time. A veteran actor finds himself oddly beholden to his female chauffeur. A recently divorced salesman opens a jazz bar as memories of an old lover keep surfacing, unbidden. Across these seven tales, Haruki Murakami turns his attention to men who, in one way or another, end up alone - not through any single dramatic event, but through the slow accumulation of small losses and missed connections. Murakami brings his signature blend of wry humour and quiet melancholy to Men Without Women, including 'Drive My Car,' later adapted into the Academy Award-nominated film of the same name. It's a collection that rewards Murakami's existing fans with familiar touchstones - jazz, cats, unreadable women, a persistent sense of the surreal - while working perfectly well as an entry point for readers who haven't tried his novels yet. Fans of literary short fiction, Japanese literature in translation, and Murakami's particular blend of the mundane and the mysterious will find this a strong, compact introduction to his work.