Excerpt from Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

December was flying by. In the rush toward the end of the year, the city, the people, and time itself were all buzzing with a hectic energy. Everywhere I went, things seemed to twinkle and shine, and lively music filled the spaces between the shimmering lights.

So this is what the holidays are like in the city, I thought. It wasn't like holidays in the town where I'd grown up, even the busier shopping districts I'd known as a kid were never like this. And if this is what it's like in Sangenjaya, just imagine Shinjuku or Shibuya. Those places were only a few train stops away, but they still only existed as concepts to me—place names and images of busy intersections I sometimes saw on TV. Whenever I thought about that lavish, unreal world, it made me think about Kotomi and the fancy club in Ginza where she worked. I didn't know the first thing about Tokyo—I didn't even know how to get to Ginza on the train if I wanted to. Whenever Kotomi came to Lemon, towing along men who spent huge amounts of money without batting an eye, she practically glowed like she'd been sprinkled from head to toe in fairy dust. Is Ginza full of people like her? It has to be, I thought.

In the clubs in Ginza, expensive champagne and brandy flew off the shelves, each bottle worth what normal people spend a month struggling to earn. And not just in one business either—it was happening in countless bars and clubs all at the same time.

Beautiful women, laughter, music from the grand piano, big bills everywhere. Gleaming black marble surfaces, effervescent champagne bubbles streaming out of long-necked bottles— scene after scene, soaked in wealth and luxury, whirled together in my mind. All I could do was sigh.

Lemon was nothing like a Ginza club, of course, but we made it through our first Christmas well enough and closed up for the holidays a couple of days later. Kimiko and I didn't have anywhere we wanted to go or anything we wanted to do, so we would have been fine keeping the bar open. But our hot towel service and liquor supplier were closed for the holidays, and we figured nobody would show up anyway, so we decided to call it a year.

"Are you going back to Ai's place for New Year's, Hana?" Kimiko asked as she ran a dustcloth over the wall.

She said she was doing the big end-of-year cleaning, but there wasn't much for her to do. We didn't have a lot of stuff to begin with, and she was always cleaning. As Kimiko wiped the walls, I lay against my folded-up futon and watched her making little circles with one hand.

"Nah, I'm not."

"Have you talked with her recently?"

"No, I don't have anything to say to her, so why waste money on the call? Doesn't she call you sometimes?"

"Huh ... That makes sense, I guess."

I hadn't spoken to my mom since I left home at the end of the summer.

That day—the day I ran into Kimiko on the street—I left home and started living with her. And back then I was excited to be leaving, but also afraid—like maybe I was making a huge mistake. My mom was always off in her own world, doing whatever she wanted, and that was exactly why I worried about her. Moving in with Kimiko, I felt like I was abandoning my mom—maybe she wanted out just as bad, and here I was leaving without her. I was torn with guilt.

If my mom begged me to come home, what would I do? I gave it some thought, but the more I thought about it, the more confused and upset I became. Was she going to be able to make it on her own? What if she got caught up in some kind of trouble? Was she worried sick about me? I blamed myself for making the huge mistake of leaving without even telling her where I was going.

But it turned out I'd been wasting my time worrying. My mom didn't even realize I was gone until more than a week later. When Kimiko got a call from her and handed me the phone, panic welled up in me. On the other end of the line, my mom started talking like normal, like everything was the same as always. She went on and on about how she was thinking about getting her driver's license, about the different options for driving school, about the cats she'd seen in the display window of some new pet shop. The longer I listened, the harder it got for me. When I couldn't take it anymore, I blurted, "Mom, I'm going to live with Kimiko from now on." Without missing a beat, she replied, "Sure, Hana, if that's what you want"—like I was asking her what she thought of my new hairstyle. She didn't ask me if I would keep going to school, or what I was going to do for money. She didn't ask me anything about my life. I half expected her to tell me it was out of the question, or that I should come home first so we could talk it over. But no. She wasn't sad, she wasn't angry. "You've always been so responsible, Hana. And you're an adult now. Besides, you've got Kimi there. If you need me, you know where to find me, okay?" She said it all so cheerfully—then she hung up.

Excerpted from Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami. Copyright © 2026 by Mieko Kawakami. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.