The midnight hour approaches in an almost empty all-night diner. Mari sips
her coffee and glances up from a book as a young man, a musician, intrudes
on her solitude. Both have missed the last train home. The musician has
plans to rehearse with his jazz band all night, Mari is equally unconcerned
and content to read, smoke and drink coffee until dawn. They realise
they've been acquainted through Eri, Mari's beautiful sister. The musician
soon leaves with a promise to return before dawn. Shortly afterwards Mari
will be interrupted a second time by a girl from the Alphaville Hotel; a
Chinese prostitute has been hurt by a client, the girl has heard Mari
speaks fluent Chinese and requests her help. Meanwhile Eri is at home and
sleeps a deep, heavy sleep that is 'too perfect, too pure' to be normal;
pulse and respiration at the lowest required level. She has been in this
soporfic state for two months; Eri has become the classic myth - a sleeping
beauty. But tonight as the digital clock displays 00:00 a faint electrical
crackle is perceptible, a hint of life flickers across the TV screen,
though the television's plug has been pulled. Murakami, acclaimed master of
the surreal, returns with a stunning new novel, where the familiar can
become unfamiliar after midnight, even to those that thrive in small hours.
With After Dark we journey beyond the twilight. Strange nocturnal
happenings, or a trick of the night?