Hot Chocolate on Thursday

Hot Chocolate on Thursday / Michiko Aoyama
trans. from the Japanese by E. Madison Shimoda
NY: Hanover Square Press, 2025, c2017.
208 p.

I first read Aoyama via her novel What You Are Looking For is in the Library. That one was a bit quirky but I still liked it enough to want to try this one, the start of a series. This novel hit my interests right now, and I really enjoyed it. 

It is set in a little cafe in a quiet part of Tokyo, the Marble Cafe. It is owned by someone known as The Master, but run by a young man who acts as manager. As it opens we meet a regular, a woman who comes in alone to write letters, always ordering hot chocolate. The manager is intrigued by her and wonders about her, not knowing that she notices him as well.  

The book is about the connections made in everyday ways - through her writing, to a friend who has moved overseas; to others in the shop connecting accidentally through small things; to the woman who receives the letters in Australia, and her life connecting in small ways to a food truck proprietor there. There is always food, and the constant theme of the ways that people's lives bump into one another and affect one another without any plan or intent. The story ranges widely, moving from the Marble Cafe to Australia, by following a chain of characters. A character from each story moves forward to be the main character in the next episode, and so all the stories and people are linked even if they don't know how. And then the story circles back to the Hot Chocolate woman and the cafe manager in the final chapter. 

This was soothing, expansive and I loved the concept. While it is brief and covers a lot of characters, I think that was the point - rather than digging in deeply to one life, it was showing the ways so many lives brush up against one another. I thought it was a delight, and of course wanted hot chocolate even in the midst of my summer!