A novel about mothers troubled by divorce, children, and their dealings with school, who find encouragement in the athletes running the Tokyo Women's Marathon and reassess their own lives. It portrays families in flux and the solidarity of women within everyday life.

Amid the pressures of family and school, the mothers find strength in the runners before them.

Architectural historian Hiroyuki Suzuki examines architecture through seven forces: association, number, Gothic, detail, imitation, genius loci, and the past. Linking buildings to history, place, and human memory, the book opens up new ways of seeing architecture.

Using seven forces as guides, the book reconsiders architecture as activity inscribed in place and time, rather than form alone.