Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone by Sequoia Nagamatsu

“You should be here; he’s simply magnificent.” These are the final words a biologist hears before his Margaret Mead-like wife dies at the hands of Godzilla. The words haunt him as he studies the Kaiju (Japan’s giant monsters) on an island reserve, attempting to understand the beauty his wife saw.

“The Return to Monsterland” opens 'Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone,' a collection of twelve fabulist and genre-bending stories inspired by Japanese folklore, historical events, and pop culture. In “Rokurokubi”, a man who has the demonic ability to stretch his neck to incredible lengths tries to save a marriage built on secrets. The recently dead find their footing in “The Inn of the Dead’s Orientation for Being a Japanese Ghost”. In “Girl Zero”, a couple navigates the complexities of reviving their deceased daughter via the help of a shapeshifter. And, in the title story, a woman instigates a months-long dancing frenzy in a Tokyo where people don’t die but are simply reborn without their memories.

Every story in the collection turns to the fantastic, the mysticism of the past, and the absurdities of the future to illuminate the spaces we occupy when we, as individuals and as a society, are at our most vulnerable.

"Godzilla remembers your wife and is sorry. Godzilla cannot help being Godzilla."

I read How High We Go in the Dark last year and loved it. Wouldn't shut up about it. Finally convinced friends to read it too, and those friends loved it. I re-read it with those friends, loved it all over again. We all decided to read this one immediately after finishing his other book, and, wouldn't you know it, I loved this one too.

Like his other (newer, more popular) book, this one is a collection of short stories. It doesn't have the same time-sweeping, interconnected, epic feel as How High We Go in the Dark, and there's some superficial connections - a few names, a reference here or there to something earlier - but nothing that substantially shifts things at the end like his other book. But that doesn't matter. Each of these stories is just as good as anything there, in my opinion.

Nagamatsu uses various aspects of Japanese folklore and culture as a starting point to tell each of his stories here. Kaiju, kappa, yokai, some death/remembrance customs, and more each have a unique story told involving them in some way. Some of the standouts for me included “Girl Zero”, “The Passage of Time in the Abyss”, “The Rest of the Way” (right in the feels), and “Kenta's Posthumous Chrysanthemum”. Honorable mention to “Placentophagy” for the visceral ick factor, and to “The Inn of the Dead's Orientation for Being a Japanese Ghost” for putting names to things I'd seen in Japanese horror movies/manga.

You can definitely see the influence this book has on How High We Go in the Dark, but not so much that it's the same thing in different clothes. This was an incredibly unique, compelling, and emotional read that I'm glad I made time for. Highly recommend.