Do the suffocating pressures of Japanese society produce monsters? Does trying to live by men's rules drive women crazy? These are two of the questions posed by Natsuo Kirino in her powerful new novel, "Grotesque."
In her earlier mystery, titled "Out," now available in an English translation from Kodansha International, Kirino looked at four women leading lives of quiet desperation on the fringes of Japanese society. "Grotesque" (Bungei Shunjuu, 536 pp.), on the other hand, was inspired by a 1997 murder in which the victim was a 39-year-old woman who was a researcher at Tokyo Electric Power Co. by day, and a prostitute by night.
Why would a career woman at an elite firm lead such a double life? Kirino starts exploring possible answers in one microcosm of Japanese society she calls school Q (thought to represent Keio), and the coping mechanisms of four female students there.