[In the following review, Seaman provides a positive assessment of NP.]

Kitchen was a surprise hit last year for young Tokyo author Yoshimoto, so expectations will be high for this taut little melodrama. Yoshimoto has a distinctively pop, bemused, and telegraphic writing style. Her new novel's enigmatic title, NP, stands for "North Point," a sad old song that was a favorite of a writer named Sarao Takase, who used it as the title of a collection of 97 stories. After his suicide, a 98th story surfaces and becomes, or at least is rumored to be, the catalyst for two more suicides. Those deaths, and the 98th story's incestuous theme, set the fateful tone for several tense little romances. The narrator, a pretty young woman named Kazami, is amusing, sensitive, and high-strung. She becomes fascinated with Sarao Takase's children: the twins, Saki and Otohiko, and Sui, their half sister and, problematically, Otohiko's lover. Kazami finds herself attracted both to Sui, which surprises her, since she has never been in love with a woman before, and to Otohiko. Moments of telepathy and extravagant behavior lend a kooky air of mysticism and spontaneity to the proceedings and deepen our wonder at the dangers and idiosyncrasies of love. Yoshimoto's fans won't be disappointed.