Masatsugu Ono

"A flock of birds whirred into flight, and Night shivered. Bird-pecked fruit with rotting wounds lay scattered atop the leaves blanketing the yard. The leaves shifted, tramped by unseen feet. Somewhere, an abandoned bird left behind was frantically beating a broken wing. Even knowing that its wing would only be further lacerated, the injury made worse, the bird could not stop clinging to the knife-edged air."

In an unnamed foreign country, a family of three is settling into a house at the edge of the woods. But something is off. Strange sounds come from beyond the tree line. The locals have tales of thieving imps who steal children. The postman speaks of violence through constantly shifting shark teeth. An old woman wanders naked and disoriented from the forest. The Dark is a living, breathing presence. And amidst it all is the ongoing story of a pregnant woman traveling to her family home in hopes of avoiding another miscarriage and the father who is left behind to take care of their young son.

The book is split into four sections, each functioning as a separate tale of sorts but that also adding more insight into the story and dynamics of the main family. And while each tale has its own small rise and fall of conflict and resolution, there are clear overarching themes, such as the alienation and isolation of the father and son or the emotional tension between childhood innocence and real world trauma. There are also levels of metaphor, allegory, and hidden meaning layered in through the text so it's a bit hard to explain without spoilers.

I found the book overall to be a nice balance of thought-provoking and unsettling, if a bit hard to understand at times (the writing sometimes morphs into stream of consciousness and symbolism and I'd get a little lost). The father's fears of parenthood were very well done, and I really enjoyed all of the unnerving and complicated scenes involving him and his son. There are some intense moments of brutality and also just lots of strangeness embedded throughout, where characters say and do things that just seem a little off without explanation. It all adds up to create a book that is insightful, disquieting, and occasionally undone by it's own goals.… (more)

This book was my introduction to Two Lines Press, bought from their AWP promotion at the start of the pandemic. I read it for January in Japan.

Let's be honest. I bought this book for the octopus on the cover, and tragically, the only octopus in the story gets eaten. But I didn't feel cheated at all. This book reminded me a bit of Ms Ice Sandwich, in that both books have that quiet melancholy feeling that good translated Japanese literature often gives me, and both feature fourth-grade boys as protagonists dealing with, shall we say, sub-optimal home lives (disengaged mothers, absence of father figures). This one take the latter to an extreme, and one of the running themes of the book seems to be: How do you experience care and affection from others when the person who is "supposed" to model that for you gives none?

There is more here, as well, of course. Ghosts, the fallibility of memory, the ways communities do and do not care for the most vulnerable, a possibly magical dolphin.

A strange thought, but it reminds me of the unexpected cultural resonance of the Moomins with the Japanese. It's got some of that same understanding of both the tenderness and the viciousness of childhood.

Anyway, I was swept up in it, and I really enjoyed it.

I do also want to say, as physical books, Two Lines' books are BEAUTIFUL. Arresting cover designs, French flaps, clean interiors. This is pretty much my ideal paperback format, which makes it my ideal book format.… (more)