Books by Hiroko Oyamada
Weasels in the Attic
From the acclaimed author of The Hole and The Factory, a thrilling and mysterious novel that explores fertility, masculinity, and marriage in contemporary Japan In three interconnected scenes, Hiroko Oyamada revisits the same set of characters at different junctures in their lives. In the back room of a pet store full of rare and exotic fish, old friends discuss dried shrimp and a strange new relationship. A couple who recently moved into a rustic home in the mountains discovers an unsettling solution to their weasel infestation. And a dinner party during a blizzard leads to a night in a room filled with aquariums and unpleasant dreams. Like Oyamada’s previous novels, Weasels in the Attic sets its sights on the overlooked aspects of contemporary Japanese society, and does so with a surreal sensibility that is entirely her own.
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$13.95
The Hole
by Guy Burt, Lindsay Bonilla, Hiroko Oyamada, José Revueltas
“[A] COMPELLING PSYCHOLOGICAL TALE . . . A QUICK AND INTRIGUING BOOK WITH A TRULY SATISFYING ENDING.”
–Publishers Weekly
On a spring day in England, six teenagers venture to a neglected part of their school where there is a door to a small windowless cellar. Behind the door, the old stairs have rotted away. A boy unfurls a rope ladder and five descend into The Hole. The sixth closes the door, locks it from the outside, and walks calmly away. The plan is simple: They will spend three days locked in The Hole and emerge to become part of the greatest prank the school has ever seen. But something goes terribly wrong. No one is coming back to let them out . . . ever.
Taut and eerie, suspenseful and disturbing, The Hole is a compelling novel of physical endurance, psychological survival, and unforgettable revelations made all the more stunning by its shocking end.
“A frighteningly good plot . . . Expertly borrows the horror and tension that made William Golding’s Lord of the Flies such a success.”
–Metronews
“COMPULSIVELY SINISTER.”
–The Times (London)
BB/Ballantine Books/ 44655 /$ in USA • $ in Canada
Visit our Web site at www.ballantinebooks.com
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The Hole
by Guy Burt, Lindsay Bonilla, Hiroko Oyamada, José Revueltas
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, The Hole is by turns reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, David Lynch, and My Neighbor Totoro, but is singularly unsettling Asa’s husband is transferring jobs, and his new office is located near his family’s home in the countryside. During an exceptionally hot summer, the young married couple move in, and Asa does her best to quickly adjust to their new rural lives, to their remoteness, to the constant presence of her in-laws and the incessant buzz of cicadas. While her husband is consumed with his job, Asa is left to explore her surroundings on her own: she makes trips to the supermarket, halfheartedly looks for work, and tries to find interesting ways of killing time.
One day, while running an errand for her mother-in-law, she comes across a strange creature, follows it to the embankment of a river, and ends up falling into a hole―a hole that seems to have been made specifically for her. This is the first in a series of bizarre experiences that drive Asa deeper into the mysteries of this rural landscape filled with eccentric characters and unidentifiable creatures, leading her to question her role in this world, and eventually, her sanity.
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The Hole
by Guy Burt, Lindsay Bonilla, Hiroko Oyamada, José Revueltas
A classic of Mexican literature in the twentieth century, The Hole is a dazzlingly devastating novella
Set in a Mexican prison in the late 1960s, The Hole follows three inmates as they plot to sneak in drugs under the noses of their ape-like guards. The inmates desperately need to secure their next fix, and hatch a plan that involves convincing one of their mothers to bring the drugs into the prison, inside her person. But everything about their plan is doomed from the beginning, doomed to end in violence…
Unfolding in a single paragraph, The Hole is a verbal torrent, a prison inside a prison, and an ominous parable about how deformed and wretched institutions create even more deformed and wretched individuals.
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The Hole
by Guy Burt, Lindsay Bonilla, Hiroko Oyamada, José Revueltas
A powerful story perfect for opening up conversations about loss
What does it feel like to lose someone you love? For one little boy, it’s like he has a hole in his life. It’s in the bottom bunk, where his little brother, Matty, used to sleep, and it’s on his brother’s chair at dinner. It follows him everywhere until the day he decides to really explore it. Inside the hole he confronts his grief—the sadness, the anger, and the truth of how much he misses Matty. His friend is waiting when he climbs out, and when she asks, “Do you want to tell me about your brother?” he’s surprised to find that talking about Matty is a comfort—and helps fill his hole with good memories.
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$18.99
The Factory
The English-language debut of Hiroko Oyamada―one of the most powerfully strange young voices in Japan
The English-language debut of one of Japan's most exciting new writers, The Factory follows three workers at a sprawling industrial factory. Each worker focuses intently on the specific task they've been assigned: one shreds paper, one proofreads documents, and another studies the moss growing all over the expansive grounds. But their lives slowly become governed by their work―days take on a strange logic and momentum, and little by little, the margins of reality seem to be dissolving: Where does the factory end and the rest of the world begin? What's going on with the strange animals here? And after a while―it could be weeks or years―the three workers struggle to answer the most basic question: What am I doing here?
With hints of Kafka and unexpected moments of creeping humor, The Factory casts a vivid―and sometimes surreal―portrait of the absurdity and meaninglessness of the modern workplace.
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