Point Zero by Seicho Matsumoto (translated by Louise Heal Kawai)
I would like to thank Bitter Lemon press and Random Things Tours for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for fair and honest review
Publisher – Bitter Lemon Press
Published – Out Now
Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99 Kindle ebook
Tokyo, 1958. Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by a go-between. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to the coastal and snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance. When Kenichi's brother comes to help her, he is murdered, poisoned in his hotel. Soon, Teiko discovers that her husband's disappearance is tied up with the so-called 'pan-pan girls', women who worked as prostitutes catering to American GIs after the war. Now, ten years later, as the country is recovering, there are those who are willing to take extreme measures to hide that past.
When entering relationships, the key question is who is this person that you are about to share your life with in some way? Who are they really? This very much is one of the key aims of dating to check compatibility and also get past that initial period of smiling and laughing to see if there is a lot more under the surface you should be aware of. But imagine if the person you are expected to start your life with is much more a stranger and then before too long you’re married – how much would you know your spouse. This is the interesting situation that Seicho Matsumoto posed in Point Zero - a 1959 Japanese Thriller now translated for the UK very ably by Louise Heal Kawai where a traditionally arranged marriage ends quickly with an unexpected disappearance and many questions.
Teiko is a young woman in her twenties in Tokyo who has received a very appropriate marriage proposal from a slightly older but reputable businessman named Kenichi Uhara. No whiff of scandal and his bosses are pleased with his career. They are soon married and Teiko is starting to get to know this man who can be booth cool and passionate. But Kenichi leaves a few days into the marriage to tie up things at his office before starting to move closer to Teiko. The week passes and soon Teiko and Kenichi’s bosses are concerned. Teiko and Kenichi’s successor start to make enquiries as to what may have happened. Teiko feels strongly that the answers lie in her husband’s hidden past, but great danger awaits.
I think the fascinating angle this thriller brings alive is the fascinating impression of Japan towards the end of the 1950s. The aftermath of WW2 casts a long shadow; the US still has bases in the country, there is a mix of 20th century industry with ad agencies, the desire for office promotions and yet combined with a very old-fashioned view on marriage that slightly already feels to Teiko necessary but also uncomfortably strange that she has to still do this. Sixty plus years later the idea of marrying someone we hardly know so quickly feels to a UK audience quite problematic but here in a 1959 novel its quite refreshing to see this being questioned and the darker side of the process comes across – the wife doesn’t know what she is entering into; Teiko is expected to become a housewife, giving up her job and ultimately aiding her husband progress. Teiko while not openly rebels against this societal view is perhaps slightly more questioning of it and once Kenichi disappears she takes a proactive approach to investigating his appearance. She feels a rounded complex woman who doesn’t take as gospel the voices of male authority be they in her new family, her husband’s employer or the police telling her what to do.
Matsumoto explores the slightly darker side of Japanese society. A period when male suicide was becoming more prominent; where a few years earlier with Japan under a large amount of American control enters a seedier side of ‘pan-pan girls’ a form of prostitution which many young women in a war-torn country were found in which holds longer term consequences in a society where women are expected to be pure. We have that fascinating dimension of noir thrillers where the society people think is perfect becomes more greyer and there are familiar threads of power, corruption and perhaps we feel that Teiko is heading into dangerous territory. Its impressively sinister and although I think the suspects do become soon obvious a little too early, we still fear Teiko is up against powers that may overwhelm her which keeps the tension up well in the second half.
This is my first taste of Matsuomoto and I can see why they were so acclaimed it is despite the age a very modern feeling thriller ably translated by Kawai that I’d like to discover more of this author’s work as it cast a gaze on a period of history I’m largely unaware of and this is quite fascinatingly explored.
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