A while back I decided to try to increase the number of books in translation that I read, and especially non-European books.
The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada is a book in that category (and also a tick on my Book Riot Read Harder 2021 checklist, not that I expect to completely fill that card).
Asa has a boring job for a company where she is not a permanent employee. Then her husband gets transferred to a different office, and they need to move. The new office is closer to his parents, who have an empty rental next door to their own home, which they offer, rent-free.
They move in during the hot part of the summer, and Asa must settle in as a housewife, something she hadn’t been up until then. And strange things are happening. She sees a strange creature, and when she follows it, she falls into a hole just big enough to hold her, standing up with her head above ground. There are strange children at the corner convenience store. She meets a man who claims to be her husband’s brother, and that he lives in her in-laws’ shed.
Is all of this real, or is she going crazy?
There isn’t much of a plot to the story, it’s more of a character and environment study. You can feel the summer heat, hear the sound of cicadas in the fields. The environment reminds me of watching My Neighbour Totoro for the first time. It’s the sort of book that should be read in a hammock during the dog days of summer, with a glass of lemonade.