by Ted Goossen
First published 2025
The narrator returns from college to spend summer drinking beer at J's Bar with his friend the Rat. He pursues a relationship with a nine-fingered girl while thinking about writing and past lovers. Three years pass. He moves to Tokyo, works as a translator, and lives with twin sisters who look identical. The Rat stays behind in their hometown, unable to escape despite wanting to leave both the place and his girlfriend. The narrator cannot shake memories of a failed romance. More strangely, he becomes obsessed with a pinball machine he once played at J's Bar. The three-flipper Spaceship model consumed his attention during those earlier days. Now the machine calls to him across time and distance. He begins searching Tokyo to find that exact pinball model. His quest becomes a journey through memory and loss, connecting his present isolation to moments when simple pleasures like pinball provided meaning in the spaces between larger disappointments.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Tokyo, Japan
Period: 1980s
336 pages · Paperback · Vintage Classics