Problems and queries will be accepted until the end of January, and Murakami’s answers will be published over the following two months. She had to stop 
 
 attending dinner parties as someone 
 
 would inevitably say something 
 
 like, “I didn’t know which husband to 
 
 expect tonight!” or “Your husband” this/ 
 
 “Your husband” that with her partner 
 
 sitting right there. She did not view herself 
 
 as a joke & yet this joke word “adulteress” 
 
 was in her head so she said to her daughter 
 
 who was learning to sew, “Can you make 
 
 a big red A & sew it on my black dress?” 
 
 Her daughter said, “Which black dress?” 
 
 & the woman said, “Every black dress.” 
 
 
 
 Published in the NS of 2 October 2015. The website’s URL or email address for questions is not yet available, the publisher’s spokesman said.
– Who better to offer advice to the lovelorn, the beleaguered, and the downtrodden than a hermit-like Japanese novelist? That's the plan for Haruki Murakami, known recluse and one of Japan's most famous writers, his publisher said today, per the Guardian. According to Shinchosha Publishing, the 65-year-old surrealist author will serve as what the Brits call an "agony uncle" on a page called "Murakami's Place" on its website, dispensing wisdom in response to questions submitted by readers from Jan. 15 through Jan. 31, Reuters reports. He'll tackle "questions of any kind," a company rep says per the Guardian. "After so long, I want to exchange emails with readers," Murakami is quoted as saying by Shinchosha, with the rep adding to Reuters that "he likes to engage with readers, but there's so much interest it's hard for him to interact well. This should be smoother." Marukami once referred to himself as "an endangered species [that] may get intimidated and bite" if people got too close to him, the New Statesman reported in 2013. No one's sure where the self-banished Murakami—often brought up as a possible Nobel Prize candidate—lives, though the Guardian notes he "spends much of his time" in the US; the New Statesman claims he resides in both Japan and Hawaii. Some of the Qs he may receive will likely touch on some of his favorite topics, including cats and the Yakult Swallows, a pro Japanese baseball team. Or they may be more fitting for a writer known for what the Guardian calls "intricately-crafted tales of the absurdity and loneliness of modern life": "We expect there to be some rather strange questions," the rep says, per Reuters. "Which ones he answers depends on him." (Hopefully it will turn out better than this lad-mag column.)