However, the degree to which Minato extends this logic in service of her story might leave the faint of heart breathless. Many accept it as a truism that Japan is a country in which morality is situationally determined, and the stereotype does, of course, reflect one aspect of the culture only to learn that we need yet one more revelation to secure our understanding of the details. Through it, we experience Minato’s skillful ability to pull us into the obvious narrative device privileging multiple perspectives and to keep us on tenterhooks through the repetitions necessary in the overlapping tales while we await that one piece which seems to be missing. The translation is, as we would expect from Stephen Snyder, comfortable. Where Confessions succeeds is in its layered construction-revealed slowly and, often, surprisingly in each subsequent confession-of the lives and forces that motivate both the killer and the teacher. The specifics, too, are not necessarily novel: the murderer is a student and the victim is the four-year-old daughter of his teacher. The premise is simple: a murder was committed and a surviving relative seeks revenge. Comprising six “confessions” from five characters, the bleak picture Minato paints of people so deeply mired in their own self-absorption, so firmly invested in self-worth determined solely by the degree to which others notice them, leaves one despairing of a future for Japan’s youth other than total moral decay. 1973), is a sobering indictment of current Japanese society, told in a manner vaguely reminiscent of an epistolary novel through a variety of conceits: a resignation speech, a letter, a diary, a recurring nightmare, a blog, and a phone call. ISBN 9780316200929Ĭonfessions, the debut novel from Minato Kanae (b.

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