In the ward, Benny meets Alice, a young woman recovering from addiction. Her job is threatened by the growing irrelevance of such agencies, and she worries about losing her health insurance while Benny is being treated at the hospital. Melanie, spends two weeks in the children’s psychiatric ward, and takes medications prescribed for psychosis and anxiety.Īnnabelle, who works for a news-monitoring agency, begins hoarding. He begins a course of treatment with child psychiatrist Dr. When the voice of a scissor prompts Benny to stab his teacher, Benny stabs himself in the leg.

Gradually, this escalates into his hearing the voices of inanimate objects around the house and in school. Benny begins hearing what he believes to be the voice of his late father whenever he is close to Kenji’s ashes. Following Kenji’s death, teenage Benny and his mother, Annabelle, hold a cremation for him, taking his ashes back home until they can decide on how to properly honor them.īenny and Annabelle develop conflicting coping mechanisms.

Benny’s story begins with the unexpected death of his father, Kenji Oh, a jazz musician and Japanese immigrant living in San Francisco with his wife and son. The novel is told through a mix of Benny’s first-person discussions with the Book, the Book’s narration of plot events in Benny’s life (told in varying points of view), and excerpts from a fictional book Tidy Magic. The Book of Form and Emptiness begins with the narrative voice of the Book describing a boy, Benny Oh, and their relationship. Content Warning: Mental health, grief, self-harm, and hoarding.

The book of form and emptiness