by Yukio Mishima: A novel that explores the themes of love, death, and the clash between traditional and modern values in post-war Japan. The story follows the relationship between a young boy and his mother’s lover, a sailor who has fallen from grace.

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea tells the tale of a band of savage thirteen-year-old boys who reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call “objectivity.” When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship’s officer, he and his friends idealize the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard their disappointment in him as an act of betrayal on his part, and react violently.

Source: https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/things-to-do/the-best-books-about-tokyo.