For decades, Pico Iyer has spent part of each year in Japan with his wife Hiroko. Called back by her father’s sudden death, he embarks on a cycle of rituals honouring the departed. In this meditation on human nature and mortality, he introduces his ailing mother-in-law; his estranged brother-in-law; and the elderly men and women of the ping-pong club, traversing the autumn of their years in different ways.