Men Without Women (2017) is a short story collection by Haruki Murakami. The stories are works of literary fiction with some elements of magical realism. The stories follow different men as they deal with the loss of women in their lives, whether it be from infidelity, death, or simple heartbreak. Across these seven stories, Murakami explores The Persistence of Loneliness in Love, The Relationship Between Masculinity and Emotional Unavailability, and The Conflicting Nature of Memory After Loss. 

The collection’s first story, “Drive My Car,” was adapted as a movie in 2021, earning nominations at both the BAFTAs and Oscars. Murakami’s other major works include 1Q84, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Kafka on the Shore, though he has also published popular short story collections such as The Elephant Vanishes and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.  

This guide uses the 2018 Vintage International paperback edition, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature instances of death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm, sexual content, mental illness, disordered eating, gender discrimination, ableism, emotional abuse, physical abuse, child death, illness, and pregnancy loss.

Plot Summaries

In “Drive My Car,” Kafuku, an actor with a suspended license, looks for a new chauffeur. His mechanic recommends a woman he knows, Misaki Witari. Despite Kafuku’s sexist hesitations about women drivers, he hires her. Misaki ferries him to rehearsals and his jobs.

Over time, Kafuku and Misaki begin to chat on their drives. Kafuku tells the story of his 20-year marriage to another actor. Despite their marriage being a happy one, Kafuku knew that his wife was having affairs with other men. He never asked her why, acting as though he knew nothing. She died, however, and now Kafuku struggles knowing that he will never be able to uncover the part of his wife he could not understand.

Misaki asks Kafuku why he does not have any friends. Kafuku explains that one of his wife’s ex-lovers did become a sort of friend. They met by chance a few months after Kafuku’s wife died, and Kafuku asked the man for drinks. They met many times, the man listening to Kafuku talk about and grieve his wife. Meanwhile, Kafuku could see how much the man loved and missed his wife. Though Kafuku planned to hurt the man, he grew to like him and could not bring himself to take revenge. After finishing his story, Kafuku closes his eyes and cannot hear the gears of the car shift, as Misaki’s driving is too smooth.

“Yesterday” is the story of friends Tanimura and Kitaru, who meet while working in a coffee shop near campus. While Tanimura attends school, Kitaru studies for the entrance exams, having failed them previously. Kitaru, born and raised in Tokyo, speaks the Kansai dialect he learned at his favorite baseball team’s games. Tanimura, from Kansai, instead speaks standard, or Tokyo, Japanese, wanting to erase his life before Tokyo.

Kitaru translates the Beatles’ song, “Yesterday,” into Japanese using the Kansai dialect. Kitaru had a girlfriend, Erika. When Erika was accepted into university, and Kitaru was not, Kitaru suggested they no longer see each other. Though the two still regularly talk and meet, Kitaru refuses to resume the relationship until he is also admitted into university, not wanting to hold Erika back.

One day, Kitaru suggests that Tanimura date Erika for him. Tanimura is at first wary, but agrees to meet Erika. When the three get lunch, Kitaru suggests that Erika and Tanimura go on a date. Erika agrees. Kitaru later explains to Tanimura that he wants Erika to be with a nice guy and that he can trust Tanimura.

On their date, Tanimura and Erika talk about Kitaru. They both think he is too rigid in his thinking and needs to either study harder or pick a different path. Erika admits that she is seeing another boy, unsure of how things will go with Kitaru. After this date, Kitaru disappears. Years later, Tanimura, now married, runs into Erika, who tells him that Kitaru left Tokyo soon after their date, and now travels around the world as a sushi chef. Tanimura hopes his friend is happy.

Tanimura also narrates “An Independent Organ.” Dr. Tokai is a plastic surgeon who casually dates women, at times more than one. He most often dates women already in relationships or married. When he does finally fall in love with a woman, he becomes obsessed.

He and Tanimura play squash at a local gym, and Tokai tells Tanimura about his love. Tanimura does not see Tokai for months. He receives a call from Tokai’s secretary, saying that Tokai died. He stopped eating and wasted away until his heart failed. Apparently, the woman he was in love with left her husband for a different man. This devastated Tokai.

Tanimura and the secretary meet. The secretary gives Tanimura a squash racket that Tokai ordered but never used, and wanted Tanimura to have. He asks Tanimura to remember Tokai, and Tanimura believes that by writing this account, he does.

In “Scheherazade,” Habara is under some sort of house arrest. A woman stops by twice a week with groceries, books, and other supplies. She also provides him with sex, though Habara is sure that it is a part of her duties. After sex, however, the woman tells enthralling stories. Habara nicknames her Scheherazade because she resembles the queen of the same name from A Thousand and One Nights.

Scheherazade tells the story of her first obsessive teenage love. She had a crush on a boy in her class, though he never even looked her way. Scheherazade went to the boy’s house one morning and found the family’s spare key. She let herself in and went to the boy’s room. She stole one of his pencils and hid a tampon in his desk as an exchange. A week later, she broke in again, this time leaving three strands of her hair and taking a soccer badge. On her third break-in, she stole one of his dirty shirts. She would sleep with the shirt beside her, smelling it, in awe of how the smell never faded.

When Scheherazade tried to break in a fourth time, she found a new lock on the door and no key. The boy’s mother clearly sensed something was wrong. She gave up her break-ins and soon felt the fever of her obsession fade until the boy was just another classmate. Such stories provide Habara with a sense of intimacy he lacks in other aspects of his life. He worries more about losing these stories than losing Scheherazade.

In “Kino,” Kino works for a sports equipment company, travelling a lot for sales. When he returns a day early from one such trip, he finds his wife in bed with one of his coworkers. He leaves the apartment and never goes back. Instead, he strikes a deal with his aunt to convert her coffee shop into a bar and begins living above it.

At this bar, there is a strange man who often visits, always sitting in the same place, ordering the same drink, and reading. The only other regular is a gray cat. When two businessmen begin shouting one night, and Kino intervenes, the men grow hostile towards him. The strange man, Kamita, steps in and escorts the men outside. Kamita returns and tells Kino not to worry about them any longer.

Kino acts as though his divorce does not bother him. When he and his wife finalize their separation, his ex-wife encourages him to find love again. One night, he does have sex with one of his customers, a woman who usually comes with a boyfriend. The woman shows Kino her many cigarette burn scars, and he is horrified to not only think that someone would do that to another person, but that the other person would “let” them.

The cat disappears, and soon Kino begins seeing snakes outside the bar. He takes this as a bad omen, and has his suspicions confirmed when Kamita tells Kino he needs to take a break from the bar. He encourages Kino to take a trip, only sending postcards with no messages to his aunt. Kino agrees, but one night, bored in his hotel, he writes a message. In the middle of the night, Kino hears knocking at the door. It won’t stop, and Kino understands that it is actually someone knocking on his heart. He allows himself to feel the pain of his wife’s betrayal for the first time and begins sobbing, feeling comforted.

In “Samsa in Love,” Murakami inverts Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Instead of Gregor Samsa waking as a bug, a bug wakes as Gregor Samsa. The house is empty, and Samsa looks down at his new fleshy body in disgust and confusion. He feels a ravenous hunger. He goes downstairs and finds the table set with a meal, though there is no one around it. He realizes that he is cold and naked, finding a dressing gown for himself.

When there is a knock at the door, Samsa opens it to find a woman with a hunched back. She is there to fix the lock to the room Samsa woke up in. The woman often moves in odd ways, saying that her bra is uncomfortable.

Samsa watches the woman take the lock apart and realizes that he has an involuntary erection. She tells him that the lock is too broken, and she will need to take it home to her brothers to fix. One of them was supposed to come in her place, but with the tanks, soldiers, and blockades, it was safer for her to travel across Prague. When she notices his erection, she questions his manners and motives. Samsa assures her that he has no nefarious purpose. Before she leaves, Samsa asks if he can see the woman again. She tells him that perhaps they can when she returns with the fixed lock. After she leaves, Samsa heads upstairs, determined to find better-suited clothes.

In the final and titular story, “Men Without Women,” the narrator wakes in the middle of the night to the phone ringing. A man calmly informs him that a former girlfriend of his has died by suicide. The man is the woman’s husband, and the narrator has no idea why the husband even knows about him. 

After the phone call, the narrator reminisces about the woman, though he knows he cannot share any specific details. He calls her M and explains how he wished they had met. He wished they met when they were 14, in a class. When he does not have an eraser, she breaks hers in two and gives it to him. As soon as she enters his life, though, she disappears. He thinks that she fell for a sailor and follows him around the world. The narrator follows supposed clues, but always arrives in a new city a day late.

In reality, their relationship only lasted two years. Now that his former girlfriend is dead, the narrator feels as though he has joined “Men Without Women.” Now that his first love is gone, he feels as though he has lost his past, his 14-year-old self, and everything he shared or associated with M. She loved elevator music, saying that it helped her relax and made her feel like she was in heaven. The narrator hopes M is now in heaven, listening to elevator music.