The Murakami Effect

This week our cover features Patti Smith’s review of the new Haruki Murakami novel, “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.” Murakami is, of course, an internationally best-selling author with a huge following here and in Japan, where this most recent novel sold one million copies in its first week.

Murakami always merits attention in the Book Review. His last book, “1Q84,” was reviewed on our cover by Kathryn Schulz, now the book critic at New York magazine. Even before we had our review assigned, we were pretty sure this new novel, which was unusually — for a major literary novel — released in the summer rather than the fall, would merit a cover review. (Even in a year when Murakami doesn’t have a new book, he can wind up in the Book Review, as he did in this delightful Sketchbook Grant Snider did for us two years ago, “Haruki Murakami Bingo.”)

Patti Smith was our first choice to write the review. Smith is not only an acclaimed songwriter/singer, but an accomplished poet and award-winning author as well. Her memoir, “Just Kids,” won the National Book Award in 2010. I had asked Patti to review a novel for us earlier this year, which she declined, but she told me a bit about her eclectic and very fine literary preferences. Among other authors she cited, Murakami was her current obsession. As soon as “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki” was announced, I went to Patti, who agreed to write the review. This is the first book review she’s written.

Not surprisingly, a book like this has legions of built-in fans, which in this case led to an unusual assignment for the illustration. Our cover illustrator, Yuko Shimizu, actually approached our art director, Nicholas Blechman, to see if she could illustrate the review, if and when we decided to cover the book. She had already read the novel in Japanese.

Nicholas and I are both great fans of Shimizu’s work (I reviewed a remarkable children’s picture book, “Barbed Wire Baseball,” she illustrated in 2013), so we immediately took her up on the offer. The resulting sketches and final illustration clearly show her passion for and understanding of the book and of Murakami’s work.