Penance

I purchased Kanae Minatos second book because I loved Confessions so much. I loved it so much that it is one of my top recommended books! Penance follows the same formula, but lacks the dark and twisty twists of Confessions. I was on the edge of my seat reading Confessions, while I had a little trouble keeping the characters straight in Penance.

The story is about the murder of 10 year old Emily. She and her family moved from Tokyo to a small town for her fathers work. Emily is more cosmopolitan than the other children. However, she befriends Sae, Maki, Akiko, and Yuko. The girls are playing at the school one day and are approached by a workman, who requests the help of one of the girls. He picked Emily. Hours later, the girls find their friend murdered in the locker room of the pool. The murder is never solved. A couple of years later, before returning to Tokyo, Emilys mother Asako, calls the girls to her house and threatens them to either do an acceptable penance for her daughters death or to find the killer. The story is told from the perspective of each of the four girls when they are in their mid-20s. Each girl has been essentially cursed by Asakos parting words and their lives do not turn out well. The final chapter is narrated by Asako, as she tries to do penance for her harsh words.

This book did not captivate me in the same way as Confessions. It moved along at a good clip, but the story was not as tight and tense as her first book. It was difficult to distinguish among the characters as they seemed to lack individual voices. The secondary characters, like Saes husband and Akikos brother were more interesting to me. I would have liked to know more about them. The murder is solved in the end, but it is rather unsatisfying as the murderer was barely a character in the book. Much of my review is colored by the comparison to Confessions. I read Penance based on the strength of Ms. Minatos first book and I was somewhat disappointed.

Do upheavals in one world have unexpected, unintended and lasting impacts in other worlds?

This issue is at the heart of Kanae Minatos 2012 intricate mystery, Penance.

In a rural town outside of Tokyo four young women cross paths with a new arrival, Emily, the daughter of a manager of a newly constructed manufacturing plant. Despite initial skepticism and awkwardness between the townspeople and the new arrivals, the young pre-teen girls take Emily into their group.

Then, their rearranged lives are interrupted by the murder of Emily under mysterious, unresolved circumstances. Emilys mother never recovers and holds them responsible for her daughters death through their neglect at the time and cloudy recollection of the circumstances.

It is on this point of the mothers anger and grief requiring acts of contrition and repentance from four girls that the novel turns with dark results.

In five major chapters covering the incident and subsequent events over time, each from the perspective of the girls Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuko and Emilys mother, Asako Adachi, the murder and consequences are unveiled. The levels of character development and daily life detail are remarkable in clarity and originality.

While the ending has unexpected revelations, its plausibility is challenging. And some of the characters are hard to empathize with.

Minatos approach seems to both accept and reject the Japanese tradition of ikigai,

The greatest secret of ikigai, ultimately, has to be the acceptance of oneself, no matter what kind of unique features one might happen to be born withEach of us has to seek our own, in the forest of unique personalities. (Ken Mogi, 2018 Awakening Your Igikai)

But the question remains: does fatalism replace responsibility for ones actions?

(If interested, heres the link to my Amazon posted review of Ken Mogis 2018 Awakening Your Igikai from which the quote is drawn: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2D965D8ZXIG5P/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8 )

What I love most about Minatos writing are the little twists and turns that keep me guessing until the very end. She is masterful at attacking a story from many points of view without it feeling boring or redundant. I will say that I liked her first translated book a little more. Confessions had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish whereas Penance had more subtle/quiet moments. It was still an enjoyable ride that has left me eagerly awaiting another book by her!

Five young girls play on the school grounds after school. One is taken away, raped and murdered by a strange man. The four survivors are left deeply traumatized. The victim’s mother, mad with grief, irrationally blames Emily’s four playmates and exhorts them to do penance.

The plot follows the lives of each girl, overshadowed by the crime and the mother’s curse. The book is a tour de force of engrossing storytelling involving four life stories, four very different personalities, misunderstandings all around, and a shocking solution to little Emily’s murder.

Although the amount of violence and death unfolding chapter by chapter taxed my credulity, still I was riveted. Kanae Minato has a way of keeping the story flowing so absorbingly, that there’s no escape for the characters or the reader. Minato has a positive genius, too, for conveying raw, uncensored emotions in a natural voice.

I think the translation must be very good to make the first-person narratives of the characters sound so colloquial and convincingly personal.

I definitely liked this and was engrossed reading it. The story is divided into five stories centering around the murder of a young girl, and the consequences that spiral out of control when the murderer is not found. The final revelation was rather baffling, though, in its extremity and setup. Overall a well-written set of character studies with some unsettling themes, but not the best mystery. A good choice for people who like unnerving stories verging on horror.

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