MY TRAVELS WITH A DEAD MAN

Jane Takako Wolfsheim has just had a seizure. Jane was discovered on a park bench by a man named Jorge Luis Borges before being whisked away to the hospital. After a lengthy and difficult recovery, Jane comes across the man who saved her. Borges is an antiques dealer (not the Argentine author of the same name) and he insists that their meeting again is no accident. Jane winds up falling in love with Borges and the couple embark on a trip to Japan. It is here that things get strange. Sometime later, Jane wakes up in Costa Rica. Borges insists that her memories of Japan are but a dream. He also tells her they must return to the United States because Jane’s parents have died. As Jane visits the cemetery where her parents are buried, she is surprised by a haiku-spouting Japanese man from the 1600s named Bashō. Bashō has a few things to tell Jane, phrased in such a cryptic way that none of them are particularly useful. Not long afterward, Jane is arrested for the murder of her parents. From here, things only get stranger. While readers may initially expect Jane’s adventure to encompass a few odd aspects (such as a man who shares the name of a famous writer), they may be surprised at the direction Searls’ story takes. Bashō and Borges are merely the tip of the iceberg in a tale that digs into alternate realities and even a complex prophecy. All of these explorations result in a multitude of twists, though the narrative can at times be tedious. For instance, a lengthy backstory for one character provides more information than is needed in a tale initially shrouded in mystery. But in the end, the threads all culminate in a creative take on the fragile nature of reality. Yet some details could have been left to the readers’ imaginations.

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