Twinkle Twinkle

They got married ten days ago. They haven't had sex yet and they don't intend to.

As it turned out, the only way to make their parents get off their backs about trying to "find someone" was actually finding somone--with whom to put marriage for show. Mutsuki is stictly gay and has a boyfriend, while Shoko is a clinical case of emotional instability who's in no shape for a relationship. They've each found in the other a perfect partner for a sham marriage. Since the conspirators' parents know of their own child's undesirability, but not the spouse's, the union manages to please them. And while the newlyweds hope, in their own way, to live happily ever after, they inevitably come face t o face with the fact that no marriage real or staged, is a fairy tale.

A savvy novel about the strange marriage of a gay man and an unstable, alcoholic woman, "Twinkle Twinkle" takes an entirely fresh look at city life, commodity culture, marriage, forgiveness, and acceptance.

Two Japanese newlyweds, who only married to please their parents, discover troubling truths about each other as they navigate the gap between appearances and emotional reality in their culture.

They got married ten days ago. They haven't had sex yet and they don't intend to.

As it turned out, the only way to make their parents get off their backs about trying to find someone was actually finding somone--with whom to put marriage for show. Mutsuki is stictly gay and has a boyfriend, while Shoko is a clinical case of emotional instability who's in no shape for a relationship. They've each found in the other a perfect partner for a sham marriage. Since the conspirators' parents know of their own child's undesirability, but not the spouse's, the union manages to please them. And while the newlyweds hope, in their own way, to live happily ever after, they inevitably come face t o face with the fact that no marriage real or staged, is a fairy tale.

Kaori Ekuni is one of Japan's most popular and admired writers. Twinkle Twinkle, her first novel, won the Murasaki Shikibu Literary Award and was a bestseller. In addition to being a prolific novelist and essayist, Ekuni is a skilled translator of children's books. She lives in Tokyo.