Milena Michiko Fla&#353;ar's Mr Kat&#333; Plays Family is an eccentric second-lease-on-life novel for fans of A Man Called Ove and Beautiful World, Where Are You. Mr Kat&#333;--a curmudgeon and recent retiree--finds his only solace during his daily walks, where he wonders how his life went wrong and daydreams about getting a dog (which his wife won't allow). During one of these walks, he is approached by a young woman. She calls herself Mie, and invites him to join her business Happy Family, where employees act as part-time relatives or acquaintances for clients in need, for whatever reason, if only for a day. At first reluctant, but then intrigued, he takes the job without telling his wife or adult children. Through the many roles he takes on, Mr Kat&#333; rediscovers the excitement and spontaneity of life, and re-examines his role in his own family. Using lessons learned with his "play families," he strives to reconnect with his loved ones, to become the father and husband they deserve, and to live the life he's always wanted.

Mr Kato Plays Family: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Flašar, Milena Michiko

Literary

Forge Books

Milena Michiko Flasar's Mr Kat&#333; Plays Family is an eccentric second-lease-on-life novel for fans of A Man Called Ove and Beautiful World, Where Are You. Mr Kat&#333;--a curmudgeon and recent retiree--finds his only solace during his daily walks, where he wonders how his life went wrong and daydreams about getting a dog (which his wife won't allow). During one of these walks, he is approached by a young woman. She calls herself Mie, and invites him to join her business Happy Family, where employees act as part-time relatives or acquaintances for clients in need, for whatever reason, if only for a day. At first reluctant, but then intrigued, he takes the job without telling his wife or adult children. Through the many roles he takes on, Mr Kat&#333; rediscovers the excitement and spontaneity of life, and re-examines his role in his own family. Using lessons learned with his "play families," he strives to reconnect with his loved ones, to become the father and husband they deserve, and to live the life he's always wanted.

Mr Kato Plays Family

TOR.

"The best of the best from this year's bountiful harvest of uncommonly strong offerings ... Deeply original." O, The Oprah Magazine 
"Milena Michiko Flašar’s beautiful novel ... is a story about freedom and responsibility, and it results in an almost Sartrean meditation."Times Literary Supplement 
"Exceptional ... In today’s less-than-brave new world in which sincere human interaction is disappearing even as the numbers of so-called friends’ are multiplying, Necktie is a piercing reminder to acknowledge, nurture, and share our humanity."Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center blog BookDragon 
The quiet reflection of this jewel of a novel is revelatory, redemptive and hypnotic until the last word.”Kirkus Reviews
A spare, stunning, elegiac gem of a book. Milena Michiko Flašar writes with a poet’s clarity of language and vision, probing deeply below the surfaces of familiar Japanese stereotypes to tell a compassionate and insightful story of dysfunction, despair and friendship.”Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being
Flašar’s exquisite, finely wrought novel is both a prose poem and a parable about how we deflect, defer and disconnect from life, and what is needed before we can bravely embrace it again.” Monique Truong, author of The Book of Salt and Bitter in the Mouth
"A tender, melancholy book of great linguistic beauty and clarity. A flawless novel."Süddeutsche Zeitung
"With high artistry . . . this seductive beauty is also strangely religious: the book treats life with an almost Buddhist serenity."Der Spiegel
Twenty-year-old Taguchi Hiro has spent the last two years of his life living as a hikikomoria shut-in who never leaves his room and has no human interactionin his parents' home in Tokyo. As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life around him from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a middle-aged salaryman who has lost his job but can't bring himself to tell his wife, and shows up every day in a suit and tie to pass the time on a nearby bench. As Hiro and Tetsu cautiously open up to each other, they discover in their sadness a common bond. Regrets and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams, come to the surface until both find the strength to somehow give a new start to their lives. This beautiful novel is moving, unforgettable, and full of surprises. The reader turns the last page feeling that a small triumph has occurred.
Milena Michiko Flašar was born in 1980, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an Austrian father. She lives in Vienna. I Called Him Necktie won the 2012 Austrian Alpha Literature Prize.

I Called Him Necktie

Parenting & Relationships

New Vessel Press

Ich nannte ihn Krawatte: Gekürzt, mit Annotationen

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Klett Sprachen GmbH

Herr Katō spielt Familie: Roman

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

btb Verlag

Ich nannte ihn Krawatte: Roman

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