For a while, the only book that could get commuters off their phones was a novel called Butter by Asako Yuzuki, published here the summer before last. “There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine,” it declared. Part crime fiction, part cook book, it followed a journalist’s obsession with trying to secure an exclusive interview with a serial killer. I absolutely loved it. The story was so unusual, the cultural interrogation so intriguing, the food descriptions so unashamedly indulgent. It’s quite rare to put a novel down because it makes you want to cook. I devoured endless bowls of the protagonist Rika’s rice with soy sauce and butter. I found its commentary on the misogyny of contemporary Japanese society fascinating — and I wasn’t the only one. In translation it sold more than 300,000 copies and brought Japanese writers firmly into the mainstream.
It’s exciting, therefore, that another of the 44-year-old author’s 20 novels has been translated for the anglophone market, again by Polly Barton. The cover has the same cool aesthetic, this time in hot pink. The book once more promises to explore food, loneliness and womanhood in Japanese society, through a tale of a friendship which tips into dangerous obsession.
