Each story in the series told by Murakami is rooted in everyday experiences. As each of the protagonists lives their ordinary mundane lives, they search to break out of their routines. All of them are eager to experience something new, but instead of taking healthy steps to change their lives, each person resorts to unsettling behaviors to break out of their confining social molds. A newlywed couple robs a “bakery” in the middle of the night, a romantic tutor pursues one of his married students, and a businessman burns barns in mornings before he goes to work. Each of these stories climaxes is dependent on a time of the day, and the time of each story’s climax is represented by the gradient that flows through the three covers.
