Parker chronicles the wanderings of a defrocked warrior-monk in this debut historical novel.

Japan, 1745: Samurai and Zen monk Kinko Kurosawa serves as the senior music instructor at Nagasaki’s Kuzaki Temple. Like all members of his order, Kurosawa is not only a swordsman—he’s also a flautist, dedicating a portion of each day to mastering the shakuhachi flute. It is his skills with the shakuhachi that get him into trouble, in fact; his music catches the attention of a young married noblewoman, and it is only a matter of time before word of their clandestine affair reaches the temple’s abbot. In order to save face, the abbot does not outright expel Kurosawa, but strips him of his priesthood and reassigns him to a sister temple in the capital city of Edo. “Your musicianship is technically exceptional, but it does not yet reflect your depth of soul,” a mentor advises the miserable Kurosawa as he prepares to depart. “Claim that greatness of heart. Allow it to shape your music, then you will be on the path to Buddha-nature.” Dishonored and ashamed, Kurosawa sets off on a journey through a country ruled by the authoritarian Tokugawa shogunate, in which spies, assassins, and rebel samurai wage an underground struggle against the regime. He also finds a country of merchants, courtesans, kakure kirishitans (“hidden Christians”), and monks from other Buddhist traditions who do not share the same narrow worldview of mendicancy and self-denial that Kurosawa has honed in his years at the monastery. As he travels the roads, sharing music and stories in the inns, Kurosawa begins to question the tenets he has tried (and failed) to live by, all while seeking to become the soulful flautist his teacher challenged him to be. Though Kurosawa aims to avoid politics, he soon finds that every samurai—even monkish, flute-playing samurai—must choose a side in the simmering unrest against the shogun’s rule.

Parker reconstructs Edo-era Japan in convincing detail, from the weapons-free pleasure quarters of the cities to the basket-headed humility of the komusō (“monks of nothingness”). The author’s quiet prose artfully evokes Kurosawa’s world, in which every space and person has a spiritual dimension. Here the protagonist climbs a holy mountain: “The route through the forest was narrow, and as Kurosawa made his way higher up the mountainside, he found himself walking through dense clouds. A thin blanket of snow lay upon the ground, crisp and hard…Kinko felt as though he had left the ordinary world behind him and journeyed into a sacred, hidden realm.” Readers looking for a swashbuckling historical epic may be disappointed: Kurosawa’s journey is highly episodic, and Parker is primarily focused on the character’s philosophical growth. Much of the novel comprises the conversations he has with people he meets along the way. Based on the historical figure Kinko Kurosawa, who traveled around Japan collecting musical pieces for the shakuhachi, the novel succeeds in re-creating a time and, perhaps more importantly, a worldview that many readers will enjoy getting lost in.

An immersive and cerebral historical novel steeped in Zen Buddhist ideas.