It’s rare for a short story collection to captivate and glue your eyes to the page like a thriller. But “Hit Parade of Tears” by Izumi Suzuki does just that, lining up one twisted mindbender after another. The author excites with fantastical concepts, disturbs with morbid plots and intrigues with an assertive but nuanced perspective on gender roles, relationships and power structures.
This is the second collection of Izumi’s stories to appear in English after 2021’s “Terminal Boredom,” also published by Verso Books. Despite her reputation as a cult literary figure, surprisingly little is known about Suzuki. She was born in 1949 and was active in avant-garde circles, marrying free jazz saxophonist Kaoru Abe. She published several of her stories between 1973 and her death in 1986, which was caused by drug overdose. Then, new collections of her work appeared one after the next posthumously throughout the late ’90s and early 2000s, expanding and solidifying her influence.