Under strange circumstances, a young girl loses her mother, and her father blindly invites his girlfriend into the home to care for her. On shaky new ground, the girl struggles, then develops an uncanny grasp of her mother’s pristine life and the new interloper’s messy past. As the months go by, the knowledge slowly ferments. With masterful narrative control, Nails and Eyes-which was awarded the Akutagawa Prize-builds to a conclusion of disturbing power. Paired with two stories of unsettled minds and creeping tension, it introduces a daring new voice in Japanese literature.
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‘I can’t marry you’. That’s what my father told you on the first day of his affair with you.
– NAILS AND EYES
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(@PushkinPress, 27 July 2023, e-book, 144 pages, ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss)
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I really enjoyed Nails and Eyes. I like Japanese literature, but the author is unknown to me. I enjoyed this a lot and would like to read more of their work. The blurb led me to think this was horror but it’s more subtle than horror, strange, powerful, and creepy. There are three tales in all, the main story and two stories that straddle this, one before and one after. I liked the straddling stories as well but would have liked them to be longer as I wanted more. I liked this a lot.
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