"A fascinating glimpse into the intersection of art, class, and the complexity of adult friendship. . . . I couldn’t put this book down.” —Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Turning Leaves
An intimate, explosive story of creativity and friendship between two young Japanese women in 1970s Tokyo.

Akemi’s desire for independence and aversion to marriage are unusual in her small village. A gift for drawing allows her to move to a rooming house in Tokyo where she studies medical illustration, finding satisfaction in the precision and purpose of her work. Sayako is the first roommate to pay Akemi attention, and they quickly become inseparable—Sayako drawn to Akemi’s humble origins, so distinct from her own insufferable, wealthy family; Akemi attracted to Sayako’s rebelliousness and her aspiration to be a painter.
As Akemi begins to model for Sayako, their connection deepens. Together, they attend ‘happenings,' encounters arranged by two enigmatic artists, Nezu and Kaori, in random locations, intended to free them from their worldly attachments. Following a devastating betrayal, Sayako disappears, and Akemi becomes determined to find her—and in the process, must newly face herself.
Tender, enthralling, and evocative of the energy of Japan in the 1970s, The Art of Vanishing is the story of a young woman struggling to see and be seen; of authenticity and art; of the thin line between loyalty and obsession.

Lynne Kutsukake's profile page

LYNNE KUTSUKAKE is a novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, The Translation of Love, won the Canada-Japan Literary Award and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. A third-generation Japanese Canadian, she has a master's degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Toronto and studied Japanese literature in Japan on a Monbusho Scholarship. Fluent in Japanese, she has translated a short story collection, Single Sickness and Other Stories, by Mizuko Masuda. She has a degree in library and information science and for many years worked as a Japanese Studies librarian at the University of Toronto.

“The Art of Vanishing is a fascinating glimpse into the intersection of art, class, and the complexity of adult friendship. Through intricately clever prose, Lynne Kutsukake reveals resounding universal truths about creativity and humanity. The young characters at the centre of this story feel authentic and unique yet relatable, even from the other side of the globe. I was absolutely drawn to their evolving relationships and challenges, and couldn’t put this book down.” —Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Turning Leaves

“Lynne Kutsukake’s spell-casting powers are fully evident in this intricate and existentially thrilling novel about art and a fraught female friendship that draws readers into the vital flux of 1970s Tokyo. I am such a fan of Kutsukake’s work. Her ability to intimately express the discomfort and heat of her characters’ emotions—their love, dependency and rivalry—left me in awe.” —Kyo Maclear, author of Unearthing
“A beautiful examination of the power of friendship and creative expression in the search for identity and belonging.” —Nazanine Hozar, author of Aria
"The Art of Vanishing is an exquisite and stirring novel about the bold desire of two young women to render their perspectives visible through art. Brimming with emotional depth and subtle observations on female friendship, class divisions, and art-making as both a transformative and destructive act, this book is a triumph." —Michelle Min Sterling, author of Camp Zero
“Luminous and riveting, The Art of Vanishing holds a mirror to our universal struggle to see and be seen. Lynne Kutsukake’s spare and elegant prose takes the reader to Japan in the 1970s and explores the friendship between two young artists who come from very different backgrounds—and asks what it means to want to belong. The characters and scenes within these pages will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.” —Michelle Porter, author of A Grandmother Begins the Story
“A haunting, exquisitely nuanced exploration of the beauty and the cruelty of a flawed friendship. . . . I loved this elegant novel.” —Anita Rau Badami, author of Tell It To the Trees

“There was a dark underbelly to the sparkling success story that was Japan in the late 1970s and 1980s, as affluence undermined the values of many young people, making them vulnerable to charlatans and worse. Set during those ‘boom years’, Lynne Kutsukake’s suspense-filled second novel, The Art of Vanishing, offers a glimpse of the corrosive, sometimes fatal legacy left by the smug materialism of that time by juxtaposing two friends, the beautiful Sayako, a rich girl and a would-be artist, and Akemi, a girl from a poor fishing village who must learn to vanish to survive.” —Ted Goossen, literary translator, professor emeritus at York University, and co-editor of Monkey: New Writing from Japan
“Kutsukake renders a lifelike picture of 1970s Japan while dissecting, with Austenian precision, the fraught social relations among its people. . . . Perhaps the most intriguing thing about The Art of Vanishing is that it is a beautifully mimetic novel about the limits of mimesis.” –The Literary Review of Canada