Kusama Sakae: Goat Mail Series

The Match Seller

I love how Kusama can write a story with multiple characters and locations and it still feels like everyone’s isolated. This was simultaneously blithe and dizzying with characters running from place to place, always missing each other, actually and metaphorically, but somehow still taking their time with things.

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Lost Letters

This sequel to The Match Seller, continues the calm chaos found in the first book and doubles up on the near misses. It’s funny or annoying how they all kept missing each other. And although the characters are either forcing or fighting the ten-minutes-too-late chase, Kusama’s writing conveys it with ease. I held off on posting the first volume because I thought that I’d wait for this one since it wasn’t supposed to be that long of a wait, but it was pointless because this is the second title in the series and there will be a third, which she believes will be the last, sort of. She mentions that she has the intention to write a coda, which is a beautiful way of saying that she wants to write a reflective and final piece that allows readers to appreciate the story thus far but find closure as the story ends. Since the length of a coda is only limited by the wishes and will of its author, it could be a 60-page one shot or a whole other volume. We can only wait and see.