Breasts and Eggs by Kawakami, Mieko - 2021

US: Picador, 2021. Paperback. New. On a hot summer's day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: thirty -year-old Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko's teenage daughter M idoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has tr avelled to Tokyo in search of breast enhancement surgery. She's accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother's self-obsession. Her silenc e dominates Natsuko's rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woma n to grapple with their own anxieties and their relationships with one anot her. Eight years later, we meet Natsuko again. She is now a writer and find herself on a journey back to her native city, returning to memories of that summer and her family's past as she faces her own uncertain future.