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Numamushi
2023
Where is it?
Fiction/Biography Profile
Characters
Numamushi (Male), Adopted by the guardian spirit of a river; Spends the first years of his life catching frogs to eat; learning to shed his skin like his serpentine father
Genre
Fiction
Fantasy
Fairy tales
Topics
Fairy tales
Guardians and wards
Self-sacrifice
Guardian angels
Redemption
Love
Loss
Friendship
Large Cover Image
Trade Reviews
Publishers Weekly Review
With this mesmerizing novella, first-time author Ghosh eloquently explores themes of trauma, self-sacrifice, and redemption. When a "great white snake" finds a baby floating in a river "on robes made buoyant with flaming grease," it adopts the boy, naming him Numamushi after the marsh and teaching him to hunt frogs and shed his burned skin. They live in happy isolation until a reclusive former army prison chaplain, Mizukiyo, moves into an abandoned house on the river's edge. Mizukiyo befriends Numamushi and teaches him calligraphy. But when Mizukiyo's friend and lover arrives, Numamushi learns of Mizukiyo's dark past and the reasons for his intense self-loathing: after his mother, a murderer, died in childbirth, Mizukiyo was raised in a temple and then drafted to serve in Burma, where he regularly poisoned prisoners of war "to kill their minds, and keep them dumb and calm right up to the noose." Ghosh's handling of both war and the human-animal dialectic is visceral as the story--accompanied by the author's fabulously gruesome pen and ink illustration--works toward its horrific, venom-splattered climax. Ghosh's real genius is her elegant rendering of complex emotions; with spare but carefully placed strokes, she expresses love, loss, and loneliness. Fans of Kenji Miyazawa's classic Night on the Galactic Railroad will adore this rare gem. (Oct.)
Summary
Burned by napalm as an infant and adopted by the guardian spirit of a river, Numamushi spends the first years of his life catching frogs to eat and learning to shed his skin like his serpentine father. Then one day, a lonely man moves into the abandoned house next to the river, and curiosity for all things human awakens in Numamushi.

This mysterious man shares Numamushi's penchant for eating frogs but also carries the scars of war, a love of the written word, and knowledge of the secret history of the house and its river. When he begins teaching Numamushi to read and write, the growing friendship between them opens an unexpected path to metamorphosis-and healing-for them both.

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