“Everyone’s always going through something, aren’t they? That’s life, basically. It’s just more and more things to go through.”

The plot follows a couple of journalists documenting strange happenings in the deep sea, which turn out to be caused by alien forces. Their goal is to compile their findings into a book. As journalists, they gain significant insight into government actions, providing readers with a comprehensive overview of reactions at both individual and macro levels.

The way it explores the societal damage after the war, the sudden changes (rapid westernization under American rule), the depths of motherhood, and the remnants and ghosts of war is astonishing—almost making it unbelievable that this is the author’s debut novel.

Until now, I have always thought of things in terms of whether or not they could be useful to me in some way. Now I know the importance of the heart being moved.