N.P.

I wish there had a been more of the curse. I think I wanted this to be more horror, and it really isn't. It's more...navel-gazey? The writing is sparse, and it flows well and quickly. It's almost Merchant Ivory in its subtlety. The characters–of which there are only about six (and two of them appear only briefly)–are almost manic pixie Gen Xers figuring out there strange lives together and apart. Our narrator Kazami had a relationship with an older man who committed suicide whilst translating the lost short story of a Japanese writer who lived in America. The novel follows her, a few years later, after she runs into his twin children and begins friendships with them both over the course of a summer.

I find it difficult to say too much about this novel, because very little action happens. Everything occurs in the psyche of the characters, and everything is about how Kazami relates to them over the course of her summer. There is lesbian tension, there is incest, and there is existential rumination, and all in under 200 pages. I quite enjoyed it.

I just wish it had been horror. But that's just me.