To find without seeking. This is the fate that awaits those who walk through the doors of Ishikawa Toshio and his heir, Hana. In Water Moon, Samantha Sotto Yambao invites us into a world wherein the nameless store trades in that which cannot be named. Toshio and Hana own and run a pawnshop unlike any other. It straddles the world of ‘the real’ – that which is governed by the laws of physics with which we are familiar and accustomed – and that which defies these laws, representing a kind of freedom that is accessible only through the pawnshop’s silent invitation.
Yambao invites us to question the extent to which Toshio, Hana and those in the ‘real’ world are satisfied navigating the world with a pervasive sense of powerlessness, regrets and sorrows. They are custodians of an order that wills them to traffic in the choices of others. Agency is, therefore, at the centre of the book, of finding meaning through decision-making. Yet while loss of self is a focal point of Water Moon, so too is love.
Once Hana’s father leaves in search of her mother and Hana finds the pawnshop ransacked, she meets a stranger, Keishun, who offers to help her look for her parents. As they embark on this journey, they fall in love.
Keishun makes the choice to be introduced to a world that defies the realities of what he knows to be true as a physicist. He is told that he will forget Hana once their adventure ends – and he chooses to sacrifice his memory. Here, as with the rest of the novel, Yambao asks us to consider the choices that we have made, those we are yet to make, and to be open to the possibility of unforeseeable futures.
Through Hana and Keishun, she invites us to recognise the beauty of memory and its bittersweet undertones. Hers is a hopeful tale exploring the ways in which we are never powerless, regardless of our perception of the actualities of our social and material conditions.
In this surprising tale with many twists and turns, nothing is as it seems. Yambao reminds us that we are not alone in this business of living, of negotiating the horizons and contours of our lives. We can find love and joy in familial ties, romantic entanglements, friendships and in each breath that we take.
Read: Book review: Three Days in June, Anne Tyler
Water Moon is irreducible to fantasy. Despite its imaginative nature, it carries a strange sense of realism that leaves readers wondering about the journeys we have embarked on to wrest control over our own lives. This is a serenade, a love song to memory and a naming of that which we dare not speak out loud.
Water Moon, Samantha Sotto Yambao
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
ISBN: 978085705330
Pages: 374pp
RRP: $34.99
Publication date: 16 January 2025
