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

Where

We Go

When

All We

Were Is

Gone

Sequoia

Nagamatsu

If, as I did, you grew up on the likes of Ultraman , Zatoichi , and Godzilla , youll feel right at home with, but also challenged by, the stories in Where We Go When All We Were is Gone . Its an exhilarating debut that serves up every guilty-pleasure pop-culture satisfaction one could hope for while simultaneously reframing and refashioning those familiar low-art joys into something singular, unanticipated, and entirely original.

Pinckney Benedict, author of Town Smokes and Miracle Boy

Ghosts, Godzilla, shape shifters, sea creatures, snow babies; Sequoia Nagamatsus fantastical characters are nonetheless grounded in modern-day conflicts, creating a fascinating and haunting mix of science and myth, past and present. These are stories of gods and monsters walking among us, told with wit, longing, and wisdom.

Timothy Schaffert, author of The Swan Gondola , an Oprah.com Book of the Week

A combination of the mystical, magical, and marvelous, Sequoia Nagamatsu weaves a collection of bold, hysterical, and moving tales into an unforgettable debut. From shape-shifters, to star-makers, to babies made of snow, the characters in Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone form a community of longing, of the surreal, of wonder. What a joy it is to read each and every story.

Michael Czyzniejewski, author of I Will Love You for the Rest of My Life: Breakup Stories

"These stories deftly breathe new life into the myths and pop culture of an older Japan, bringing them into the modern world and directing them in unexpected ways. It's hard to tell if Nagamatsu holds nothing sacred, or if he holds everything to be. In either case, the effect is the same: these are deft atmospheric romps that a hell of a lot of fun but also worm their way under your skin before you know it. An addictive and compelling debut.

Brian Evenson, author of Lords of Salem (as BK Evenson w/ Rob Zombie) and A Collapse of Horses

Strange, subtle, emotionally resonantNagamatsus fiction is consistently excellent.

Kij Johnson, Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award Winning author of The Fox Woman , Fudoki , and At the Mouth of the River of Bees

The stories in Where We Go When All We Are is Gone make up a rich tangle of the familiar and beautifully new. These are bright inventions but they will also satisfy our longing for the stories we have always loved.

Ramona Ausubel, author of No One is Here Except All of Us and A Guide to Being Born

Sequoia Nagamatsus universe is one in which modern Japan and its ancient folklore play in the same delightful puddle. Creepy, unnerving, and full of heart, these tales of love and demons, death and Godzilla, loss and possibility, will creep into your dreams and enchant your imagination.

Kelly Luce, author of Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail

In the perfectly stirring stories of Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone , Sequoia Nagamatsu constructs a cartography of eye-stinging wonder with his fleet of wobbly wabi-sabi GPS syntax-spinning satellites. These fictions plot asymmetrically the raw terrain of the wasabi slathered human heart, leaving us lost in all our findings, the stunned state of boketto, empty yet teeming with that taste of awful awe.

Michael Martone, author of Michael Martone and Winesburg, Indiana

This is a dream I dreamed...
Natsume Soseki

I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed.
Rynosuke Akutagawa

What isnt remembered never happened. Memory is merely a record. You just need to re-write that record.
Serial Experiments: Lain

Black Lawrence Press

Executive Editor: Diane Goettel
Cover and book design: Amy Freels
Cover image: Solitary Flight by Eric Fan, graphite and digital painting

Copyright Sequoia Nagamatsu 2016

ISBN (e-book): 978-1-62557-116-8

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the pblisher: editors@blacklawrencepress.com

Published 2016 by Black Lawrence Press.

The following stories originally appeared in the publications listed:

The Return to Monsterland in Conjunctions, Placentophagy in Tin House online , Rokurokubi in Zyzzyva , Girl Zero in Bat City Review , The Peach Boy in The Fairy Tale Review , The Inn of the Deads Orientation for Being a Japanese Ghost in Puerto Del Sol , The Rest of the Way in Copper Nickel , The Passage of Time in the Abyss in Gargoyle , Snow Baby in Monkeybicycle , Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone in Green Mountains Review , Headwater LLC in Lightspeed Magazine , Kentas Posthumous Chrysanthemum in The New Delta Review .

For Cole