Austrian author Milena Michiko Flašar’s latest novel, Mr Katō Plays Family, makes use of the range of feelings experienced during retirement to explore imagination, relationships, and family. This heartwarming and quiet story, translated from German by Caroline Froh, unfolds in an almost dream-like, stream-of-consciousness style as Mr. Katō connects with others and renews his sense of purpose in life.
A former office worker, Mr. Katō fills his unscheduled days by walking or jogging through the Japanese suburbs. His wife tells him that he should stay active, and the new routine gives him something to do. But one afternoon, his life is turned upside down after he meets a woman in the cemetery who introduces herself as Mie. After a short conversation, she hands him her business card.
She opens a purse embroidered with sparkly rhinestones that he hadn’t noticed before; funny, it was tucked in the crook of her arm the whole time, maybe because she is sparkling herself, he thinks, and takes the card almost gingerly as if it were a toad that might not be poisonous but is still horrifying nonetheless, with all its warts and its meaty neck and suction cups.
The name of the company, Happy Family, is embossed on the card. Its signature service is matching customers with for-hire friends and family members for all occasions. Mr. Katō joins the company as a part-time employee, giving him the opportunity to slip into several different roles. Mie starts by assigning him with what seems like a straightforward task: working as a stand-in grandfather for a boy named Jordan. Although the training is sparse, over the course of their meetings, Mie explains some rules she has devised for their line of work.
The first is that
We don’t remember the people we were close with yesterday. If we happen to run into each other again today, which is highly unlikely, we’ll have forgotten them like the speck of dust that trickled off our forehead while we slept. We have nothing to do with them.
And the second rule is that
We insert ourselves into the network of relationships, if necessary, as far back as the mother’s mother’s mother. We find the weak spots and make them our own, because we believe every family has at least one weak spot, and that weak spot exists in each member of the family.
According to Mie, following this particular principle is what really distinguishes their authenticity.
It is perhaps the third rule, however, that makes the biggest impression on Mr. Katō. Mie instructs him that
When we get up in the morning, regardless of how bad we might be feeling, we get ourselves in front of a mirror, stick our arms up high—like this—and try to smile with our whole body.
Despite keeping this new line of work to himself, his wife notices that a change has come over him. Perhaps as a result of all the smiling, she mentions that he seems different—almost as if he is on vacation. As a result, he reflects on the cozy familiarity of their relationship: something that some customers of Happy Family might even desire for their own home lives. Then he also notices a change in his wife, who has started taking ballet lessons at a local dance studio.
Divided into three parts, the book gradually builds momentum as it traces Katō’s life before, during, and after his tenure with Happy Family. Aspects of Flašer’s writing have been compared to Jun’ichirō Tanizaki and Haruki Murakami, but her sensitive exploration of the human experience, as it relates to the themes of loneliness and connection in modern society, is distinct.
Mr. Katō’s outings with his play families—spending time with his grandson Jordan, visiting the aquarium with his wife Chieko, speaking at his employee’s wedding party—give him a new appreciation of relationships. These feelings spill over into his real family life, where he may just rediscover feelings of happiness and love that have been present all along.