Wildcat Dome

Originally published in 2013, this impressionistic if baffling story of three childhood friends by Tsushima (Territory of Light), who died in 2016, spans from Japan’s post-WWII occupation by the Allies to the Fukushima nuclear accident. Mitch and Kazu were adopted together from an orphanage for the mixed-race children of American GIs. When they’re eight, they and their playmate Yonko witness the drowning death of another girl from the orphanage, but their memories of exactly what they saw, and whether a neighborhood boy named Tabo pushed the girl into the water, are blurry. As they grow up, Mitch, Kazu, and Yonko forge their own paths, but they reunite decades later after learning of a series of unsolved murders. Since the victims were all wearing orange, the same color worn by the girl who drowned when they were children, the trio suspect Tabo is the killer, and the novel climaxes with their visit to Tabo’s mother. Along the way, Tsushima jumps through time to jarring effect, as when she flashes forward to Kazu’s death from a fall. Composed of awkwardly fitting parts and puzzling tangents, such as Mitch’s vision of radioactive jelly after the Fukushima disaster, the narrative fails to cohere into a unified whole. Readers will have a tough time with this one. (Mar.)