"Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon/Reviewed by Diane Lick

If you could reconnect with someone you’ve lost, would you? If so, why? What do you think you would say?

In “Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon,” Japanese magical realism author, Mizuki Tsujimura, shares four stories in which a grieving person reaches out to someone they have lost by using a “go-between.”

The go-between is a young man who has the gift of being able to arrange a meeting with a living person and a deceased individual. But there are rules: the living person can only ever meet with one dead person and the dead person can only meet with one living person. Their meet up must take place during a full moon and can only last for one night.

The first four chapters are comprised of short stories that relay the encounters that the go-between arranges. In the first, a young woman meets with an “influencer.” In the second, an oldest son meets with his mother. The third features a teenage girl meeting with her best friend, and in the final story a man meets his fiancé.

In the last chapter, the reader learns the backstory of the go-between and more information is given about each of the other meetings.

This is a book that may well stay with readers long after they finish it. “Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon” is contemplative causing us to question if summoning the departed back from the afterlife is acceptable if the prime purpose is to make us feel better. And since the departed can only have one meeting with a living person, what happens if the departed is needed more, by someone else, at a later time?

This slim novel should lead to great book club discussions.

Buy the book.