The Book of Form and Emptiness is not narrated like your typical book. But when Benny and the Aleph meet outside the walls of the hospital, Benny’s struggles magnify, sending him down a path from which he may not recover. It is here where he meets the enigmatic Alice, later known as the Aleph, and falls in love with her anti-authoritarian personality and punkish charm. Eventually, his struggle becomes too much to hide from the adults in his life, and he ends up being sent to a psychiatric hospital to recover.

The constant chatter is enough to drive Benny to the brink of insanity, and he struggles to find ways to cope with the sudden influx of noise. He starts hearing the objects talking to him, telling him what they desire or need. Benny also begins to develop an attachment to the inanimate objects around him, but in a drastically different way. Soon, the family’s house is filled with all of Annabelle’s treasures, rendering the space virtually unlivable. She begins to develop a hoarding problem, continuously purchasing useless items at thrift shops and craft stores. Struggling to find ways to cope with the sudden death of her husband, Annabelle turns to the comfort of things. But grief can do strange things to a person, and in Kenji’s absence, both Benny and Annabelle begin to slip into despair. Many of his traits and hobbies have been passed down to his son who tries to preserve the memory of his father by honoring the things that he once loved. Kenji, a distinguished jazz musician, came to America from Japan where he met Annabelle and started his life with her. His life with Annabelle and Benny, while not perfect, was filled with love. Before his death, Kenji was a devoted father and husband. He does not survive this freak accident, leaving Benny and his mother to pick up the pieces of their now-fractured family. He has just had a fight with Annabelle and slipped out for a walk when he falls asleep in the middle of an alley where, during the early morning hours, he is accidentally run over by a chicken truck. When we first meet Benny and Annabelle, Kenji is still alive, but not for long. In this way, The Book of Form and Emptiness paints a unique picture of what it means to lose a loved one, while also drawing on traditional Zen Buddhist concepts-Ozeki, herself, is a Zen Buddhist priest-about loss and the impermanence of things.

Ozeki, while bringing her human characters to life, also attempts to give a voice to the material objects in our lives that we may often take for granted. The Book of Form and Emptiness seeks to explore common themes of grief and mental illness through the uncommon lens of everyday inanimate objects. In Ruth Ozeki’s first novel in eight years, she takes us to California where we meet a young boy named Benny Oh and his mother Annabelle, two individuals who are both struggling to cope with the tragic death of husband and father, Kenji.

The form of emptiness