Abstract

Yoko enjoys her single life as a successful author. Yet since childhood she has had a recurring dream in which she is an unhappy housewife with a husband and child who make incessant demands on her. As Yoko puts it: “The self in my dreams has been growing up at the same speed as my real life. So she seems to be going through life at the same pace as I am, but in a different place and time—as if she lives in a parallel world.”

But now, incidents begin to occur in which the disparate lives of the two Yokos grow increasingly entangled. As her real and dream worlds converge in disturbing ways, Yoko finds that both of her selves appear to be the target of murderous intents. Jumping back and forth between the two Yokos—“Side A” and “Side B”—the narrative races to a stunning denouement with an unexpected twist. The reader is left to savor the satisfactorily queasy aftertaste that makes this novel a masterpiece of the iya-mys genre of “creepy mysteries.”

Author’s Information

Yukiko Mari (1964–) was born in Miyazaki Prefecture, and graduated from Tama Art College with a degree in film. She made her literary debut in 2005 by winning the Mephisto Award for her novel Kochūshō (Sparganosis). When the paperback edition of her novel Satsujinki Fujiko no shōdō (The Urges of Serial Killer Fujiko) appeared in 2011, it catapulted into the ranks of bestsellers with cumulative sales of over half a million copies. She subsequently produced the sequel Intabyū in seru: Satsujinki Fujiko no shinjitsu (Interview in Cell: The True Tale of Serial Killer Fujiko). Her other titles include Onna tomodachi (Girlfriends), Yon-maru-ichi-ni gōshitsu (Room Four-Oh-One-Two), and Ōmu-rō no sangeki (Tragedy at Parrot Pavilion). Because her stories feature numerous grisly and grotesque episodes and delve into the darker sides of human desire and instincts in ways that often leave readers with a feeling of disgust, she has earned the nickname of “Queen of Iyamisu (roughly, ‘eww mysteries’).”