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Beautiful Distance
by
Yamazaki Nao-Cola
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Beautiful Distance |
| Author: | Yamazaki Nao-Cola |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Written: | 2016 (Eng. 2026) |
| Length: | 139 pages |
| Original in: | Japanese |
| Availability: | Beautiful Distance - US |
| Beautiful Distance - UK | |
| Beautiful Distance - Canada | |
| Die Schönheit der Distanz - Deutschland | |
| from: Bookshop.org (US) |
- Japanese title: 美しい距離
- Translated by Charlotte Goff
- With a Foreword by Katie Kitamura
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Our Assessment:
B+ : difficult subject matter well-handled
See our review for fuller assessment.
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publishers Weekly | . | 1/7/2026 | . |
From the Reviews:
- "Yamazaki's restrained reflection on death shimmers with deep emotion below the surface. This will move readers." - Publishers Weekly
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
In Beautiful Distance a man chronicles the last months of his wife, suffering from terminal cancer.
They are both still relatively young -- in their early forties -- and have been happily married for fifteen years; they don't have any children.
The diagnosis came as a surprise to them -- she is young, and there seem to have been no obvious risk factors -- and it is clear there is no hope for recovery; the husband -- and the wife -- know she is going to die.
(The medical professionals are occasionally perhaps a bit too clear about this, with one doctor at one point apologizing: "I really am very sorry if I said something that made you think there was still hope".)
The narrative covers several months and stations along the way, the wife at a series of hospitals as her condition deteriorates.
The narrator has been able to arrange it at work that he can spend more time with his wife, and he visits her for extended periods as often as he can.
He tries to do what he can for her, knowing they are facing the inevitable; despite her worsening condition, the time he can spend with her and the small gestures he can make are precious to him:
If only these days could go one forever. If only I could spend an eternity here in this hospital, looking after her.He works for an insurance company, while she opened her own sandwich shop soon after they got married. Aside from her mother -- a regular visitor -- some of her suppliers and customers come to visit her as well. (In these visits as also in the other interactions -- with the various doctors and nurses, for example, -- the novel is also of interest in what it shows of Japanese culture and conduct, and how it differs from those elsewhere.)
The professionals are (all too ?) clear on the outlook, and speak accordingly -- telling the husband, for example:
It's important that you understand that she's not improving, and have a think about if there's anything left that you'd like to do together. For instance, if she wants to go home for a little bit, it would be good to get that arranged as soon as possible ....A visit back home, even for a day or two, is apparently a common request, and the couple here consider it too, but it never comes to pass; while the wife moves to different hospitals and rooms, she is away from home the entire time; the husband always treks to visit her.
Neither husband nor author raise any real hopes along the way, and the arc of the novel isn't much of one: this is a chronicle of decline and death, with the final sections dealing with her death and the arrangements and ceremonies that then follow, extending briefly to some mention of the months and finally over a year after her death. With her death, the husband acknowledges: "She's getting further and further away, I think. Our relationship keeps changing even after her death" -- but it remains, for him, a relationship. So even after a year there is a connection; the 'beautiful distance' of their marriage, when they had been so close (while still maintaining spaces) has been replaced by a very different one, but one the narrator can still take heart in as well.
His wife is the center of his life -- while she is still going fairly strong the narrator finds: "I don't think of my own parents or my sister as my family now either. My family is my wife" -- but the inevitability of separation hangs over him throughout here. He notes: "we're all moving toward death" -- but here the immediacy of it can not be avoided.
Beautiful Distance is not unsentimental, but Yamazaki navigates this difficult territory without becoming mawkish, and it is a fine little novel.
- M.A.Orthofer, 9 July 2026
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Beautiful Distance:
- SJP Lit publicity page
- Daunt publicity page
- Curtis Brown information page
- 文藝春秋 publicity page
- DuMont publicity page
- See Index of Japanese literature
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Japanese author Yamazaki Nao-Cola (山崎 ナオコーラ) was born in 1978.
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© 2026 the complete review
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