Catfish Rolling

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review! Then, it fast forwards to her graduation, where she's still suffering under the loss of her mother (years later), but considering the various time pockets, which have formed, her attitude is understandable. It was believed that there was a giant catfish living underground the islands of Japan, and was restrained by a stone. Catfish Rolling’, took inspiration from the tragedy of ‘The Great Japan Earthquake’ that had befallen Japan in 2011 as well as this Japan legendary myth. Due to the devastation, as well as the time-anomalies, these zones are off-limits to anyone but a restricted few governmental scientists.

I love the dialogues between Sora and her father because, their banters would be funny although they were actually quarelling. It’s a wonderfully written, thought provoking piece of speculative magical realism, that combines a post-apocalyptic-exploration mystery with an emotional character journey. The most frustrating thing about Catfish Rolling is that more and more mysteries are introduced, and almost none of them are solved. Will Sora’s scientist father find the answer to what really happens in the ‘zones’ before it’s too late? When Sora’s father goes missing, she has no option but to venture into these spaces in hope of tracking him down.

Her fiction and nonfiction for children and adults has been published in The Stinging Fly, the Irish Times, and the Kyoto Journal among others; this is her debut novel. Considering this is a fantasy book containing a lot of science, it’s not surprising that Catfish Rolling is more of a feeling than something that can be explained.

So, get ready for a deep dive into emotions, loss, and hope because this read dances around that heart the whole way through. I'd say it's the kind of soft and emotional sci-fi that reminds me of Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011) and Mike Cahill's Another Earth (2011).The different time zones are described as dangerous, but the actual consequences of them were not explored enough for my taste. But unlike most, they are studying time and the areas, venturing secretly in when no one is allowed. I love the cover of this book, it caught my eye instantly and as soon as I read the blurb I wanted to jump right in.

I had many expectations for this title after reading the enchanting description about catfish that cause the land to rise and fall beneath the islands of Japan. When Luki’s tribe is offered the chance to journey to America for the St Louis World Fair, she eagerly escapes the constraints of rural mountain life.

Catfish Rolling is a savvy, fast-paced novel that will engage mature readers and easily devoured in a single sitting. Kelly's particular interest in language acquisition and vocabulary development has led to the publication of her first book, Word Power: Amplifiying vocabulary instruction (2019) - full of ideas for building a language-rich environment and top tips to Power-Up explicit vocabulary instruction. It is an incredibly well written story, which I gather was at least partly inspired by the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011.

I especially admire the way the author was able to describe the out of bounds areas so well that I could easily visualise what the characters were seeing and hearing. This mysterious opening by Clara Kumagai’s debut YA novel, Catfish Rolling, drew me in from the first page. Kumagai nails the narrative on each of these levels in a way that only an incredibly skilful author can. The ending also felt bizarrely fast-paced compared to the rest of the book which was fairly slow-paced, and so it all felt pretty disjointed.

Now Sora and her scientist father live close to the zones – the wild and abandoned places where time runs faster or slower than normal. It's an intrigue world and circumstance, which leaves many questions and offers the hope that she'll not only figure things out. Because although the sci-fi/fantasy components are fascinating, complex, and unexplained, there’s a lot more to this book than time travel and shadows with no bodies and catfish god folklore. In fact everything changed that fateful day when the catfish who dwells beneath the surface grew restless and needed.