Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. [6][7], In 2002, prompted by a magazine editor's invitation, Motoya made her fiction debut with the short story Eriko to zettai (Eriko and Absolutely). Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. In her stories alienation is less a threat than a feature of contemporary life. Your email address will not be published. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. Is a Woman Ever Going to Win the White House? Longenbachs Forever, Noah Warren Empire Gold : A Review of Claire Meuschkes UPEND, John Wall Barger Its saddermore bruisingthan a revenge fantasy. Its remarkable ending urges one to reexamine the mysteries of the story: the uncanny dogs, the fine-drawn snowbound setting, the temporal ellipsesall those details that seem to delicately conceal the protagonists frayed psychology. April 2021 Micro-Reviews, Amanda Auerbach Ad Choices. His work has been published in Tin House Online, Nashville Review, Harvard Review, and Full Stop. 209 pages. By the first few sentences, you know you're hearing the voice of a remarkable writer; by the end of [the story] "An Exotic Marriage", you're certain that Yukiko Motoya's shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you., Financial Times These uncanny stories surprise, unnerve and haunt, Spectator Incredibly enjoyable stories, Daily Mail . (Several tales allude to Kwaidan, a ghoulish anthology compiled by the folklorist Lafcadio Hearn, in 1904.). On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. I waited for something else to happen, but that was it. When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. the Akutagawa Prize, for An Exotic Marriage in 2016. The Lake Hamana eel was firmer and more succulent than the one from the Mikawa region. Motoyas prose advances a similar principle. Her varied work has resulted in numerous accolades, and, most recently, the release of The Lonesome Bodybuilder, the first book-length English translation of her fiction. 'These arresting, hyper-real stories linger in the imagination . A sales associate at a boutique stays overnight digging up outfits for someoneor somethingthat wont leave the dressing room. Motoya's stories tend to include a few odd details and features -- often contrasting with the seeming normality of the narration, a mix of the absurd and matter-of-fact mundane. They treat the importance of others inner lives as a given. "The Reason I Carry Biscuits to Offer to Young Boys", trans. I saw it on the local news the other day. New York, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2018. Do you know the story of the snake ball? Both women, at the service of their partners desires, are reshaped by othersan easy way to become a stranger to yourself in Motoyas world. One of Mocketts main foci is an introduction to Hayao Kawais suggestion of an aesthetic solution common in Japanese literature. Premium access for businesses and educational institutions. I wonder. What would you think if you saw his true form? Between me and Senta, I mightend up swallowing him all in one big gulp.. In the opening story, a meek saleswoman whos taken up bodybuilding practices flexing, but drops the pose without having been able to look my mirror self in the eye. In another, a bored housewife notes that sometimes she looked in the mirror and was reminded of a blank postcard. Marriage, she concludes, has made her resemblance to paper even more notable than before. Such endings introduce a kind of ontological flexibility into the very structure of the storythey bring an essential playfulness to the work that is much more engaging and absorbing than a more rigid finale. Each time I looked at my husband lying on the couchshe thinks to herselfI had the strange impression I was living with a new kind of organism that would die if it exerted itself in any way. His laziness alarms her more than the migration of his features to new regions of his face. An Exotic Marriage, which has some of my favorite elementsa burst of an ending, a Motoya premise built of clever conceit and thoughtful perceptionis inexplicably long, with several side-plots cluttering the central story. Walker Rutter-Bowman received his MFA from Syracuse University. "That Morning, When It", trans. How to Fix Transistor Radios and Printed Circuits, DR. D.T.R.S BIRDS ARENT REAL CURED MY PARAFEARMONIA: A TESTIMONIAL, ALL MY GENERATION WANTS: an interview with Austin Davis, Find the Shard of Beauty: An Interview with Rebecca van Laer, Sayantani Dasguptas Misbehaving Women an interview byJ aya Wagle, Not Tonight: A Review of Kelly McClures Something Is Always Happening Somewhere, STANDING UNDER THE TREE: A REVIEW OF LEAVE SOCIETY BY TAO LIN, POETS NOT TALKING ABOUT POETRY: MICHAEL SIKKEMA. Their tone is light and good-natured, but they mean to modify by force the received notions of relationships and their default mode of subjugated women. Soft Skull Press. By now, I was like the ghost of a snakethat had already been eaten up by many other snakes, and Id lostmy own body long before getting swallowed up by my husband. [26], Nobuko Tanaka of The Japan Times has called Motoya "the darling of Japanese media" for her frequent contributions to Japanese magazines, television, and radio. I didn't like that story much at allit shouldn't have been in this collection. In spite ofin fact, because ofher affection for the odd and comic, Motoyas stories grant sobering insights into the compromises of love and marriage, the fraught pursuit of art and desire, and the dangers of becoming stuck in the wrong version of your life. Nov. 2018. Every time Inoticed myself acting as though that was who Id been all along,a chill went up my spine. [1] As a child she read mystery stories by Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edogawa Ranpo, as well as horror manga. Hearing Hakonessnake-ball story, I finally felt that something that had beencloudy to me had become clear. Motoya wards off fatigue by peppering this buffet of patriarchal cruelty with humorsurprising enough and sharp enough to elicit as many belly laughs as grimaces while reading. Yukiko Motoya is a writer, playwright, and stage director. Motoya also discerns the way the pursuit of freedom can be corrupted into cruelty or madness. I remembered that once, many years ago, Id asked Santa Claus for a present: to wake up and have the whole world to myself, she recalls as she wanders the ghost town. Each story begins unsuspectingly a clerk helps a woman in a changing room, a wife decides to go to the gym and, from these seemingly realistic setups, the magical and the surreal unfold. Any reader pursuing concrete examples of nimble writing and unconventional resolutions could do a hell of a lot worse than Yukiko Motoyas The Lonesome Bodybuilder, a collection of short stories that mangle and deform the familiar until it becomes something both wildly unexpected and deeply welcome. Arent you going to have any? the husband-like thing said. All rights reserved. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. Its when Motoya is on the rocky terrain of collapsing relationships that her strangeness finds the friction it needs to stick." . 224 pp. Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links, Twelve stories from collections originally published in Japanese in 2015 and 2016, "Her characters seem to be searching for the strangest, and most estranged, parts of themselves. The fact that I couldnt stop, even if Itried, was proof that it wasnt actually a matter of anything as benign as acting or pretending. Like the work of Aimee Bender and Robert Walser, many of these stories, however whimsical on the surface, possess a sense of dread at their core. Yukiko Motoya ( , Motoya Yukiko, born July 14, 1979) is a Japanese novelist, playwright, theatre director, and former voice actress. Lingerie? Back to the gym she goes. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the Settings & Account section. But Id like us to stay as separate people for a little longer., I mean, getting married, that means swallowing everything about the other person, the good things and the bad. This sense of unpredictability traverses the entire collection, and yet the stories rarely seem desultory. Youknow, I think pears might be my favorite fruit, he announced. . Some changes render you, paradoxically, more yourself. Even as The Lonesome Bodybuilder approaches its conclusion, new and winding pathways unfurl. She finds a trainer, and a good deal at a nearby fitness club (a rather unlikely "100 Free Sessions Until You See the Results You Want ! I decide who I am, and never consider other possibilities. In another story, I Called You by Name, an ad exec compares her past and present, recalling her earlier determination to never allow herself to be bound by anything as common as common sense.. How could he even see straight? I finished towel-dryingmy hair and stepped out onto the balcony to bring in the laundryId hung out that afternoon. No one in Yukiko Motoya's new story collection, . [19] It included a new translation of Irui konin tan under the title "An Exotic Marriage". I carefully took a piece of each and placedthem on top of Hakones rice. These stories are pointed, possessed by a defiant and often violent spirit. Oh, those, my husband said, turning his shoulders towardme. We used to sing this song all the time. . [30], In 2013 Motoya married the poet, lyricist and film director Kite Okachimachi. I have the feeling I would have met a version of myself I dont know now? Left to their own devices, these characters may have been content with the status quo, but the universe Motoya builds taunts them with their secret motivations until theyre forced to confront them publicly. But I guess that cant be right. He pulled the strip of squid from his mouth, and said, Itsbecause youre a housewife, San. With frank sincerity, Motoya makes the exhausted clichs of marriage and intimacy literal, and thus, energetically strange. There is something pareidolic about the writing process. Asa Yoneda. Youd both be in trouble then,wouldnt you? Hakone said. Each time I looked at my husband lying on the couch, I had the strange impression I was living with a new kind of organism that would die if it exerted itself in any way. Translated by Asa Yoneda. Coins.. Soft Skull Press. On Places Ive Taken My Body by Molly McCully Brown, Art Edwards We use by the end of "An Exotic Marriage," you're certain that Yukiko Motoya's shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you." --Financial Times "Motoya . Like that actress from the movies., How did he split up with a person like that and end up marrying you?. He currently lives in Washington, DC. His misperception becomes literal: he cant grasp whats right in front of him. Youre accommodating, San, and before you know itshe breaks off, as Sans features rearrange themselves to mirror her partners. From The Lonesome Bodybuilder. He's a founding member of Literary Starbucks (2016) and a recovering poetry editor with a chronic crush on nouns that get used as adjectives. . You must be concerned, said Hakone, sounding anything but as she took a pair of disposable chopsticks out of their packet. I fled from thetinkling of coins falling and the suckling sound of him chewingon dried squid. Hey, give itback if youre not even going to play. My husband took the iPadfrom my hand and sank his head back to the game. On The Curious Thing by Sandra Lim, Diana Whitney document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a99614a11d827b9063a1afe41f6c5bef" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. He seemed to be enjoying eating me up so much that the sensation of it spread to me, and I felt as though I were tasting my own self. . I wanted to pretend I was asleep, but then he wentto switch on the light, so I reached out and caught his hand almostby reflex. But she doesnt want the menshe wants the muscles. At their very heart, however, are everyday struggles that are not only typical in contemporary Japanese society, but identifiable around the world" -. No spam, we promise! Q&A, which is presented as the deathbed ravings of a beauty columnist, is a meta delirium of tips, callbacks to previous stories, and rage. August 2021 Micro-Reviews, Christina Pugh Facial features intermittently disassemble, prompting Sans panic. My body was startingto coil, and I tried to stop thinking by closing my eyes even more tightly. Other extraordinary examples from the collection: A girlfriend challenges her boyfriend to a duel and turns into a miniskirt-wearing siren; a husband made of straw harps on his wife to take better care of their BMW. Look at the bottom of the screen. On Exclusions by Noah Falck, Jim Johnstone This normalization gives the stories their irony and their sense of being just a bit off, like a lingering scent of formaldehyde. When I served him the peeled pear segments on a plate, thehusband-like creature excitedly reached for a cocktail stick. Motoyas women exist most vividly in their own heads, a state of being that often leaves them feeling alone in a crowd. Most of the central characters are female, with many of the stories strongly influenced by the relationships -- both intimate and more casual and distant -- they are involved in. Leave the dressing room accommodating, San conclusion, new and winding pathways unfurl can change your plan any. 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