By Kanae Takagi

Shooting Star Wagon by Kiyoshi Shigematsu.

Kodansha. 2005. ￥730

The novel Shooting Star Wagon was published in 2002 and won first prize in Magagine on Books. The softcover edition was published in 2005 and is still very popular with readers. Author Kiyoshi Shigematsu was born in 1963 in Okayama Prefecture. After graduating from Waseda's department of education he worked at Kadokawa Shoten Publishing, taught at a cram school, and was active as a freelance writer.

His book Knife won the 14th Tsubota Joji Literary Prize in 1999, Age won the 12th Yamamoto Shugoro Prize in 1999, and Vitamin F won the 124th Naoki Award in 2001. His other books are Shisso, Hinagon, and Sonohinomaeni. The main themes of his books are about issues such as family, bullying, and friendship. The subject matter of Shooting Star Wagon is family, but the story itself is fictional.

The main character of Shooting Star Wagon is 38-year-old Nagata Kazuo. One night he wanted to die because he had lost his job, had been suffering from his son's violence at home and had learned of his wife's betrayal. Just then a red Honda Odyssey stopped in front of him. Two men, Mr. Takahashi and his son, were in the car and they said they had died in a traffic accident five years ago and that they would take Nagata on a trip.

Nagata gets in the car with them and slips back in time to one year before. On his trip he meets his own father at the age of 38 and travels with him. He returns to the turning point in his career and starts his life afresh. During this trip, he noticed important things as a father, a son and a husband that he didn't notice before. He then returns in time to his real life and leads his family to recovery.

Most readers will be lead to think about what they can do for their parents and siblings, or what they can do for their family as a wife, husband, parent, or grandparent when they have a family. Readers can empathize with Nagata because he tries hard to save his family. His desire to have a happy family life is touching and it draws the reader in.

No child knows how dear they are to their parents and no parent knows how dear they are to their child. Most people think that they can understand their family, but perhaps they can't because family is too close to see objectively. Family is dear and indispensable, but sometimes family can be irritating. Shigematsu describes the subtle feelings among family members well. Although, this novel uses a time warp as a device to go back to the past, it does not interfere with the story, which could be real.

It's impossible to slip back in time to the past like Nagata in Shooting Star Wagon. However, we can learn many things from this novel, such as the importance of talking with family members. It's important to think from other family members point of view and to talk to them and try to understand them.

Sometimes we all need to see things from someone else's perspective without judging them as good or bad in order to see the big picture. And to see the big picture effectively, we need to know how the person sees their past and how they think and feel, because the present is connected to the past. If we listen to our parent's stories and try to understand them, we may be able to strengthen family ties.