Confessions by Kanae Minato is an up-put-downable novel. I read it straight through, continuously reading wherever I went in the house. A sensation in Japan, winning many literary awards, it has been translated internationally. It's an intense story packed with emotion. As several characters 'confess' their side of the events, you find yourself re-evaluating motives as well as your judgements of the characters - as the good fall into evil, and the evil are just trying to do good.
Yuki is an eighth grade science teacher whose daughter recently drowned in the school pool. The last day of the year, she tells the class she knows two of her students maliciously killed her and she has taken revenge. She has injected their morning milk with HIV tainted blood. The next semester, one becomes a recluse and the other stays to fight it out, as the class gleefully forms a vigilante gang to punish him. If you don't join in, you'll be punished next. Through letters, diaries and phone calls we hear the repercussions of her announcement from one student's mother, a classmate, the killer, and the accomplice, finding out that actions on the surface have far reaching motivations. It's a simple story of a tragedy and the power of guilt, resulting in people with the best intentions ruining the lives of those around them.
Hard to put down.
In Japan, Minato has been called the Queen of Iyamisu. Iyamisu (the eww mystery) is a term for a subgenre of mystery fiction that deals with the dark side of human nature. Readers blurt out "Eww" when reading Iyamisu novels, of which there has been a boom since 2012. Though I didn't have that reaction, it was a masterful puzzle of writing, totally unique.
This was filmed in 2011, and was Japan's official entry for the Academy Awards.
Also reviewed by Kanye Minato:
2008 (translated 2014) / Tradeback / 234 pages
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