Richard Lloyd Parry is the Asia editor and Tokyo bureau chief of The Times (London) and the author of In the Time of Madness and People Who Eat Darkness.
"An eerie, brushstroked evocation . . . A strikingly vivid, even
visceral writer, Lloyd Parry sweeps away distractions . . . to
offer tightly focused and consuming human stories . . . Lloyd Parry
is uncommonly sensitive to all such spirits, and in the tsunami he
has found a horrifying metaphor for those subliminal forces that
swirl underneath the manicured surfaces of Japan . . . The ghosts
that hover just above his charged and elemental pages are a
reminder of how much this land of order remains ruled by things
that can't be seen." --Pico Iyer, The New York Times Book Review "A
lively and nuanced narrative by the British journalist Richard
Lloyd Parry, the longtime and widely respected correspondent in
Tokyo for the London Times. Though in part he presents vivid
accounts of what was a very complex event, with this book he wisely
stands back . . . to consider the essence of the story . . .
Heartbreaking." --Simon Winchester, The New York Review of Books
"Powerful . . . Lloyd Parry's account is truly haunting, and
remains etched in the brain and heart long after the book is over."
--Lisa Levy, New Republic "Richard Lloyd Parry wrote People Who Eat
Darkness, easily one of the best works of true crime in the past
decade . . . [Ghosts of the Tsunami is] a stunning portrait of
devastation and its aftermath." -Kevin Nguyen, GQ "A wrenching
chronicle of a disaster that, six years later, still seems
incomprehensible . . . Any writer could compile a laundry list of
the horrors that come in the wake of a disaster; Lloyd Parry's book
is not that . . . Lloyd Parry writes about the survivors with
sensitivity and a rare kind of empathy; he resists the urge to
distance himself from the pain in an attempt at emotional
self-preservation." -Michael Schaub, NPR.org
"Remarkably written and reported . . . a spellbinding book that is
well worth contemplating in an era marked by climate change and
natural disaster." -Kathleen Rooney, The Chicago Tribune "Vivid,
suspenseful . . . [Lloyd Parry] re-creates the tragic events in a
cinematic style reminiscent of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood . . .
There's a harrowing intimacy here, as he brings us into families
senseless with grief, the desire for a justice that eludes them . .
. Lloyd Parry's elegant, clear-eyed prose allows him to circle ever
closer to the heart of Okawa's mystery . . . Part detective story,
part cultural history, part dirge, Ghosts of the Tsunami probes the
scars of loss and the persistence of courage in the face of
unspeakable disaster." --Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[Lloyd Parry's] writing is always graceful and filled with
compassion." --Adam Hochschild, The American Scholar "[The book's]
testimonies are almost unbearably moving . . . In an understated
way, Ghosts of the Tsunami is not only a vivid, heartfelt
description of the disaster, but a subtle portrait of the Japanese
nation." --Craig Brown, The Mail on Sunday "The stories that Lloyd
Parry gives voice to are not only deeply personal but . . .
accompanied with essential historical and cultural context that
enable the reader to understand the roles of death, grief, and
responsibility in Japanese culture--and why some survivors may
always remain haunted." --Amanda Winterroth, Booklist (starred
review) "A brilliant, unflinching account . . . Singular and
powerfully strange . . . It is hard to imagine a more insightful
account of mass grief and its terrible processes. This book is a
future classic of disaster journalism, up there with John Hersey's
Hiroshima." --Rachel Cooke, The Guardian "Lloyd Parry combines an
analytical dissection of the disaster in all its ramifying web of
detail with a novelist's deft touch for characterization . . .
Heartrending . . . it will remain as documentation to the
inestimable power of nature and the pitiful frailty of our own."
--Roger Pulvers, The Japan Times "Pensive travels in the wake of
one of the world's most devastating recent disasters, the Tohoku
earthquake of 2011 . . . The author's narrative is appropriately
haunted and haunting . . . A sobering and compelling narrative of
calamity." -Kirkus Reviews
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