Fox Spirits, Signs for Lost Children and Late Nineteenth Century Japan

Readers of my book Midnight in Peking will know I have an interest in all things fox spirit related. Judging from the feedback I’ve received many readers from all sorts of backgrounds are also interested in fox legends, spirits, fairies and the various interpretations of them in China, Korea and Japan. So, as some readers of China Rhyming might be interested, I’ll give a plug for Sarah Moss’s novel Signs for Lost Children. The jist of the story is below but Japanese interpretations and legends of fox spirits are a major theme of the book and make for interesting reading.

Only weeks into their marriage a young couple embark on a six-month period of separation. Tom Cavendish goes to Japan to build lighthouses and his wife Ally, Doctor Moberley-Cavendish, stays and works at the Truro asylum. As Ally plunges into the institutional politics of mental health, Tom navigates the social and professional nuances of late 19th century Japan. With her unique blend of emotional insight and intellectual profundity, Sarah Moss builds a novel in two parts from Falmouth to Tokyo, two maps of absence; from Manchester to Kyoto, two distinct but conjoined portraits of loneliness and determination. An exquisite continuation of the story of Bodies of Light, Signs for Lost Children will amaze Sarah Moss’s many fans