A Man

A man follows another man’s trail of lies in a compelling psychological story about the search for identity, by Japan’s award-winning literary sensation Keiichiro Hirano in his first novel to be translated into English. Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido’s life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man—her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. She discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a stranger. The investigation draws Kido into two mysteries: discovering who Rié’s husband really was and learning more about the man he pretended to be. With each revelation, Kido shares the obsession and the allure of erasing one life to create a new one. In A Man, winner of Japan’s Yomiuri Prize for Literature, Hirano explores the search for identity, the ambiguity of memory, legacies, and reconciliation of who you hoped to be with who you’ve become.