Killing Commendatore

Prologue

Today when I awoke from a nap the faceless man was there before me. He was seated on the chair across from the sofa I d been sleeping on, staring straight at me with a pair of imaginary eyes in a face that wasn t.

The man was tall, and he was dressed the same as when I had seen him last. His face-that-wasn t-a-face was half hidden by a wide-brimmed black hat, and he had on a long, equally dark coat.



I came here so you could draw my portrait, the faceless man said, after he d made sure I was fully awake. His voice was low, toneless, flat. You promised you would. You remember?

Yes, I remember. But I couldn t draw it then because I didn t have any paper, I said. My voice, too, was toneless and flat. So to make up for it I gave you a little penguin charm.

Yes, I brought it with me, he said, and held out his right hand. In his hand which was extremely long he held a small plastic penguin, the kind you often see attached to a cell phone strap as a good-luck charm. He dropped it on top of the glass coffee table, where it landed with a small clunk.

I m returning this. You probably need it. This little penguin will be the charm that should protect those you love. In exchange, I want you to draw my portrait.

I was perplexed. I get it, but I ve never drawn a portrait of a person without a face.

My throat was parched.

From what I hear, you re an outstanding portrait artist. And there s a first time for everything, the faceless man said. And then he laughed. At least, I think he did. That laugh-like voice was like the empty sound of wind blowing up from deep inside a cavern.

He took off the hat that hid half of his face. Where the face should have been, there was nothing, just the slow whirl of a fog.

I stood up and retrieved a sketchbook and a soft pencil from my studio. I sat back down on the sofa, ready to draw a portrait of the man with no face. But I had no idea where to begin, or how to get started. There

Haruki Murakami

A Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Library Journal, LitHub, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

Exhilarating ... magical. The Washington Post

Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it. The Wall Street Journal

[Murakami] is as masterful as ever. Houston Chronicle

A spellbinding parable of art, history, and human loneliness. O, The Oprah Magazine

The product of a singular imagination. San Francisco Chronicle

Expansive and intricate. The New York Times

Beguiling. . . . Murakami is brilliant. The Guardian

Dazzling. . . . [Murakami] reveals how an artist sees the world. Entertainment Weekly

[A] sprawling, uncanny epic. . . . A time-traveling tale of loss, longing, and the creation of art with an ample dash of Murakami s trademark deadpan humor. Vanity Fair

A perfect balance of tradition and individual talent. . . . Murakami dancing along the inky blackness of the Path of Metaphor is like Fred Astaire dancing across a floor, then up the walls and onto the ceiling. The Spectator

A surreal, world-altering epic punctuated by art, literature and history. Time

[Murakami] once more explicates the seemingly impossible with such thorough, exacting conviction to make believers of us all. The Christian Science Monitor
 
No other author mixes domestic, fantastic and esoteric elements into such weirdly bewitching shades. . . . Just as [Murakami] straddles barriers dividing high art from mass entertainment, so he suspends borders between east and west. Financial Times
 
[Killing Commendatore] marks the return of a master. Esquire
 
The complex landscape that Murakami assembles in Killing Commendatore is a word portrait of the artist s inner life. The Times Literary Supplement
 
Fascinating. . . . Drawing on Buddhist spiritualism, metaphysics and