Host Robin Young speaks with Emily Itami about her new novel “Kakigori Summer.”
The book centers around three half-Japanese, half-British sisters who have returned to their childhood home in coastal Japan to deal with a family crisis.
Book excerpt: ‘Kakigori Summer’
By Emily Itami
When Kiki calls, with her usual impeccable timing, the ambient airport noises on my headphones are turned up full blast, and I only answer the phone in order to silence it. My boss, Llewellyn, has just told me I have three hours to put together a presentation that requires at least a week of prep. Llewellyn has spent our entire working relationship making wrong assumptions about me based on my Asian face, and I have never done anything to correct him. I definitely do not have time for a heart-to-heart with my sister.
Kiki starts talking with no preamble, but her words are lost, because the paralegal in the office opposite has just taken a personal call, and when I remove my headphones all I can hear is her announcing to somebody that Bloody Vagina has gone and done it again. From what I’ve learnt from her calls, Vagina is her father’s newest wife. Meanwhile, Hikaru is talking over Kiki at her end, an insistent and rhythmic ‘MaMA, MaMA, MaMA’ that I don’t understand how Kiki can tune out. I have no idea why she can’t text me like a normal person. I go to close the door, and manage to drop the phone so it skitters across the corridor.
‘Turn on the news.’ The dictum floats up from the floor, the voice of a disembodied oracle.
I grab the phone before anyone hears anything else they don’t need to.
‘What do you mean turn on the news?’ I hiss, crouched down in front of one of the enormous flower arrangements that bloom incongruously across the office. ‘I live in London; I don’t have terrestrial television.’ Japan has twelve channels, and getting access to internet TV is like trying to break into the Pentagon. I think it’s a form of mind control.
‘Well, go to the digital news outlet of your choice, then.’
‘I have no digital news outlet of choice. The choice is liars or doomsayers so I’ve stopped paying attention. What is it?’
‘It’s Ai,’ Kiki says, and my stomach drops. I should have paid closer attention to the messages. ‘She’s become a national disgrace and lost her job.’ I’ve always admired that in Kiki – her ability to make all pieces of information sound equally neutral and matter-of-fact. I think the set lunch comes with a side salad. I think the person you were hoping to see is already dead. Sweet relief washes over me, followed quickly by irritation that my workday is being interrupted for someone who is still alive.
‘Don’t be over-dramatic.’
‘I’m not being over-dramatic. If you turned on the news you’d see.’
‘For f***’* sake, Kiki.’ I look up to see one of the banking interns walking past, clutching coffees. ‘Unless she’s orchestrated a terrorist attack or murdered the emperor, the BBC is not going to be covering a story about a pop talent from Tokyo.’ I get up to return to my office.
‘She’s not a talent, Rei, she’s an idol. She’s everywhere online. There are videos of them hanging around outside a brothel.’
‘A brothel? Who?’
‘Her and Ichiro,’ Kiki says. ‘Well, maybe not an actual brothel.’
‘Who the hell is Ichiro?’
‘Don’t you know anything?’
‘Nothing current, as we’ve already established.’ I sit back down at my desk.
It turns out our little sister, to the pearl-clutching horror of the Japanese public, has been caught doing the walk of shame with a married man. Not just any married man, but Suzu Ichiro, the president of Kansas Records, the biggest record label in the country, and my sister’s possibly erstwhile employer.
‘Is he even hot?’ I ask, like it matters.
‘No, obviously not – Hikaru, if you keep doing that, you’re going to shut your fingers in the drawer, and it will hurt – I mean, not that bad, for a suit. I guess the power might be attractive? He has quite nice eyes—’
‘It was kind of a rhetorical question.’
Hikaru lets out a blood-curdling howl.
‘It’s OK, Hikaru, come here,’ my sister says, the tone of her voice changing not one iota. ‘Oh dear, does it hurt?’ I hear kisses, crooning noises that are almost obliterated by his fireengine wails.
‘I have to go, Rei,’ Kiki calls over the noise. ‘Google it!’
Maybe it’s no bad thing that at that moment, Llewellyn sticks his head into the office and says that, actually, the client report needs to be ready in one hour, not three, and we’re presenting to the senior managers after lunch. I could swear he smirks as he says it. As he closes the door, my watch, an activity tracker that is never satisfied, orders me to ‘Move!’ with a smiley face.
Excerpted from the book “Kakigori Summer,” provided courtesy of Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 2025 by Emily Itami. Reprinted by permission.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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