Book review | More Days at the Torunka Café is a cosy read where lives, stories and struggles intertwine

Japanese author Satoshi Yagisawa’s More Days at the Torunka Café follows three characters navigate grief, love and loneliness as the their tales come together.

If TS Eliot’s Prufrock measured ‘his life in coffee spoons’ in 1915, the characters of Satoshi Yagisawa’s More Days at the Torunka Café, published a century later, seem to measure theirs in cups of coffee. The second instalment in the Days at the Torunka Café series, this book, like his Morisaki Bookshop series, makes the place a central character.

Cover of Satoshi Yagisawa's recent book, More Days at the Torunka Café.

Tucked away in a tiny lane behind a market in Tokyo, Torunka Café becomes the setting for three new protagonists in the second instalment: Chinyoko Bachan, an 80-year-old who has been visiting the café for two decades; Kōta, a teenager and childhood friend of Shizuku, the café owner’s daughter; and Ayako, a 27-year-old illustrator who works around the clock, determined to prove herself.

As the three grapple with their own unresolved struggles, their stories unfold across the 219 pages. Chinyoko confronts memories of her first love when a Chopin melody brings the past rushing back. Kōta, who masks his feelings by shrugging things off and turning everything into a joke, struggles with things he can neither say nor act on, including the loss of Shizuku’s sister, Sumiré, six years ago. Meanwhile, Ayako navigates the pressures of making a living as an illustrator, even as she carries the grief of losing her mother three years ago.

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The novel’s greatest strength lies in its polyphonic narrative and the way Yagisawa creates characters across generations, keeping their voices true to their individual natures. Kōta’s growing curiosity about sexual feelings is portrayed with the awkwardness and innocence of adolescence, just as Chinyoko’s fear of slipping into a darker state of mind, feels authentic. Yagisawa also beautifully romanticises a fading sense of community. The café’s owners, employees and regulars are connected by more than their affection for the place: they notice the emotions beneath one another’s outward behaviour, show up for each other and even throw farewell parties. Unrelated by blood, they form a family of their own.

However, after several books of a similar nature, Yagisawa’s plotting can sometimes feel a little too convenient. Just as the café’s part-time employee, Shūichi, announces that he is quitting, Ayako happens to run into an old friend looking for a job. And when Chinyoko reaches a dead end in her search for her first love, she discovers that the director of the film shot at the café is his son. These coincidences neatly tie the characters’ stories together, but at times, the convenience can feel a little too contrived.

At its heart, the book is a warm hug in the middle of a crisis, offering the simple reassurance that, somehow, everything will be alright.

Title: More Days at the Torunka Café

Author: Satoshi Yagisawa

Translator: Eric Ozawa

Publisher: HarperCollins

Price: ₹499

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