Ryu Murakami (not Haruki Murakami with the talking cat) writes about two thoroughly damaged souls in Tokyo where they accidentally seek and meet each other in a story that’s somewhere between horror and dark humour. The plot is shallow, but you’re here mostly for the quick ride across a disturbing psychological landscape.
The story makes for an uncomfortable reading by design, but it is very restrained when it comes to actual gore. Exploring A disturbed individual’s mind – bouncing from child abuse to self-mutilation – makes for a far more tense reading than any violent tale.
There is so much potential to go further, but either due to translation or its short length (less than 200 pages), Murakami writes enough to leave us in shock yet somehow unsatisfied.