Haruki Murakami has written 13 books since his debut as an author in 1985.  ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’, the Yomiuri Literary Prize winner book sealed Murakami’s place among other great Japanese authors such as Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburo Oe or his Franz Kafka award-winning ‘Kafka on the Shore’ are some samples of his works.

In Sputnik Sweetheart, following Sumire’s journey of realizing, agonizing and suffering with her love for Miu, a much older women with a past, rewards the reader with a lesbian-themed twists and paradoxical plots unique to Murakami.  Throw-in an incidental a gay male couple along the Jack Kerouac obsessions and skinny-dipping in the clear waters of a secluded Greek island, the LGBT reader finds an almost irresistible book.

First of all, let’s set the expectations, the lesbian relationship is not the primary focus of the book nor does the book have a satisfyingly tangible ending for any of the potential couples (or for the book for that matter).

However, unlike the typical tease of Banana Yoshimoto’s books where the reader is left wondering if the protaganist and her close female friend are ever going to be lovers, Murakami’s Sumire declares from the onset of her encounter with Miu that she “must be in love with this woman.. no mistake about it. Ice is cold, roses are red. I am in love”.

Through humor, what  Sputnik Sweeheart reader will not want to think of “cucumbers in a fridge on  a summer afternoon” next time he/she feels sexual desire for another person?, and through utter relevant irreverence “Miu’s mind went blank. I’m right here [stuck in a Ferris wheel gondola], looking at my room with binoculars. And in that room is me..”, Sputnik Sweetheart makes the reader realize that the journey the reader undertakes following the plot that brought K, Sumire and Miu together is more important than bringing a K and Sumire or Sumire and Miu relationship into fruition.  Through Murakami’s skilled navigation, the reader cannot help but winch in pity for both Sumire and K in turns.

With the brief preface on Laika, the first dog and living being launched into space by the Russian satellite Sputnik II, Miu’s explanation of the term ‘Sputnik’ to mean ‘Traveling Companion’, the line uttered by Miu, “that we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own orbits”, the reader becomes the a companion detective alongside K in putting the pieces of plot together to determine the moral of the story. Just as Sumire reached to a conclusion at the end, the reader too will realize that relationships are journeys best taken together.

‘Confessions of the Mask’ by Yukio Mishima is a must read for the discriminate LGBT reader as well.