A simple, elegant solution to your novel’s problem, or the perfect last line for it, has announced itself. In the best-case scenario, when it finally comes, the surprise will usher in relief.
And that’s when the idea struck me: I could write a novel.Īfter the game, Murakami bought some pen and paper from a nearby stationery store and began working on what would become his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing. Anyhow, he sent the first ball pitched to him that day into left field for a double. I’m pretty sure he was the leading hitter that year. He never made a name for himself in the States, so he came to play ball in Japan. The Swallows’ first batter was an American, Dave Hilton. And in all his retellings, the Yakult Swallows were playing the Hiroshima Carps, and Murakami was sitting in the outfield stands, drinking beer. Each time, the author of Norwegian Wood and 1Q84 recounts the moment with the kind of granular detail usually displayed by survivors of catastrophic car accidents as they recall the final seconds before their lives changed. Instead, he was absorbed with the operations of Peter Cat, the jazz club he owned: listening to music, preparing sandwiches, and making cocktails. Murakami was then 29 years old, and while he had vague literary aspirations, they had faded. According to an account published in Jay Rubin’s Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words, it was during an afternoon baseball game in Tokyo in April 1978. As literary origin stories go, the one about how Haruki Murakami became a writer stands out in my memory.
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