If you are tired of reading about hetero women being obsessed, painfully and passionately, with sundry men, then Asako Yuzuki’s latest novel, Hooked, is for you. Because here is a young woman enthralled by another young woman for reasons only feminists can unravel.
Female friendships form the core of Yuzuki’s stories. In Hooked, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton, there is the smart, ambitious, and single working girl Eriko, and a sloppy housewife, Shoko, whose blog, full of lazy menu suggestions and takeaways, is just too popular. The desire for domestic imperfection, which points to a modern laziness shared equally by both genders when it comes to household chores, is infectious. While Eriko admires the other’s nonchalant ability to play truant from the ‘trad’ wife trajectory, Shoko is in awe of how put-together and affluent Eriko is. The two meet, part, meet again… until the friends are not really friends anymore.
In her international hit Butter—which incidentally became a hit after its English rebirth—Yuzuki picks apart the seductress game. How can a plump, homely, middle-aged frump kill the men she allegedly killed? Attractiveness lies in a wafer waistline, surely? And yet this woman had lovers, lovers who left everything to her, and then rolled over and died. The phenomenon of agency and ageing fuses with the practical need for material comforts, maybe even some real estate. Butter brought out how misunderstood this new notion of a delicate, manicured hand waving helplessly is; it is the calloused palm to the male brow that gets results. Butter is a voluptuous ingredient to taste and share in old recipes handed down from kitchen to kitchen. Hunger and nostalgia vie with the body’s need to rest, to remember. Don’t underestimate the power of satiety. A man fed to his gills on his favourite childhood dishes is in love.
Butter gives way to fish in Hooked. As with the previous book, the cover uses the title cleverly. The information about the fish industry is woven into the plot: “Japan consumed around 6,520,000 tonnes of seafood annually, and 40 per cent of that was imported. Many of these imports were ‘nameless fish’—in other words, types of fish commonly mislabelled…” As a character says dismissively: “But when alien meat is cut up and perched on top of their nigiri, everyone gobbles it down and says how delicious it is.” God, what are we swallowing in the name of fish burgers and sashimi? As Eriko muses: “(Shoko) seemed to think that it was natural that she would be able to eat all kinds of high-quality fish here, despite paying only 98 yen a plate.”
Loneliness, social ostracisation, and the bitterness of betrayal—Hooked delves deep into sisterhood. The sis code, perhaps, is not as stereotypical as the bro code
Loneliness, social ostracisation, tentative overtures and the bitterness of betrayal—Hooked delves deep into girl talk and sisterhood. “The second date, the second kiss, her second time sleeping with someone: because she’d been so euphoric the first time, had let her hopes balloon to such a crazy extent, she’d countless times found herself feeling thoroughly let down when time number two rolled around.” Between her upcoming trip to Tanzania and her knowledge of the Nile perch fish, Eriko has a lot on her plate. And all is not sushi!
Hooked, originally titled Nile Perch Women’s Club in Japan, holds up Eriko’s corporate success and intense loneliness against Shoko’s glam lethargy. Neither is immune to the charms of sudden friendships, but neither are they innocent of manipulation and suspicion. Addressing the carnivorous element in relationships, Yuzuki deconstructs pasts and presents in the context of contemporary meetings and partings. What brings people together, what sunders them in due course? The sis code, perhaps, is not as stereotypical as the bro code. When women love each other, all is not what it seems. To misquote a Beatle: With a love like that, you know you should be… mad!