How to adequately describe "Subduction," the new work by husband and wife team Todd and L.J.C. Shimoda? A psychological thriller framed by gorgeous artwork? A beautifully bound collection of abstract, multimedia images evoking traditional Japanese brush techniques? The story of fragmented lives on a small Japanese island, an island perpetually threatened by actual and imagined underground fault lines? A whodunit murder mystery with suspects lingering from the island's fractured past?
Take a breath and start again because no single sentence can piece together the whole that makes up "Subduction," and I walked away from the novel uneasy, a bit unbalanced and unsure what to believe.
The novel begins on solid ground. Jun Endo, the narrator, is a young doctor facing a disciplinary hearing after his superior's mistake, a mistake that resulted in the death of Endo's patient. Outraged with his superior's callous dismissal of life yet unable to fight as a lowly first-year resident, Endo meekly accepts the fall, believing, "in the end, it really was my fault ... yes, I would have lost my job going behind his back, but Ms. Sunada would likely be alive."