Piercing

A pulsating psycho-thriller from Ryu Murakami, author of In the Miso Soup A renaissance man for the postmodern age, Ryu Murakami—a musician, filmmaker ( Tokyo Decadence ), TV personality, and award-winning author—has gained a cult following in the West. His first novel, Almost Transparent Blue , won Japan's most coveted literary prize and sold over a million copies, and his most recent psychosexual thriller, In the Miso Soup , gave readers a further taste of his incredibly agile imagination. In Piercing , Murakami, in his own unique style, explores themes of child abuse and what happens to the voiceless among us, weaving a disturbing, spare tale of two people who find each other and then are forced into hurting each other deeply because of the haunting specter of their own abuse as children. Publishers Weekly In this short, tense and brutally eloquent thriller from Japanese author Murakami (In the Miso Soup), Kawashima Masayuki, a young urban professional, faces the terrible fear he will stab his baby daughter, Rie, just as he once stabbed the stripper he lived with when he was 19. He decides killing a young prostitute will alleviate the building pressure inside him and protect both Rie and his sweet wife, Yoko. He plans everything meticulously, but what he doesn't bargain for is that his intended victim, Sanada Chiaki, an s&m worker, is as disturbed as he is. During their appointment, Chiaki experiences a Nightmare episode that results in a twisted game of cat-and-mouse. Murakami doesn't waste a word or a movement in this near-haiku of a tale that's breathless with anxiety and fraught with pain. (Apr.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. “Mr. Murakami’s novels are filled with entertaining psychopaths.”— The New York Times A pulsating cult-favorite psycho-thriller, the basis of the major motion picture starring Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska *One of Literary Hub 's “ Ten Works of Literary Horror You Should Read (Even if You Don't Think You Like Horror) ” * Kawashima Masayuki is a successful graphic designer living in Tokyo with his loving wife, Yoko, and their baby girl. Outwardly, their lives are a picture of happiness and contentment, but every night while his wife sleeps Kawashima creeds from him bed and watches over the baby’s crib with an ice pick in his hand and an almost visceral desire to use it. One night, as this struggle unfolds once more, Kawashima makes a decision to confront his demons and sets into motion an uncontrollable chain of events seeming to lead inexorably to murder. The follow-up to In the Miso Soup from a cult favorite writer, Piercing confirms Murakami as the master of the psycho thriller—terrifying, sickening, and utterly gripping. A pulsating cult-favorite psycho-thriller soon to be a major motion picture starring Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska *One of Literary Hub's "Ten Works of Literary Horror You Should Read (Even if You Don't Think You Like Horror)"* Kawashima Masayuki is a successful graphic designer living in Tokyo with his loving wife, Yoko, and their baby girl. Outwardly, their lives are a picture of happiness and contentment, but every night while his wife sleeps Kawashima creeds from him bed and watches over the baby’s crib with an ice pick in his hand and an almost visceral desire to use it. One night, as this struggle unfolds once more, Kawashima makes a decision to confront his demons and sets into motion an uncontrollable chain of events seeming to lead inexorably to murder. The follow-up to In the Miso Soup from a cult favorite writer, Piercing confirms Murakami as the master of the psycho thriller—terrifying, sickening, and utterly gripping Kawashima Masayuki is a successful graphic designer living in Tokyo with his loving wife, Yoko, and their baby girl. Outwardly, their lives are a picture of happiness and contentment, but every night while his wife sleeps Kawashima creeps from his bed and watches over the baby's crib with an ice pick in his hand and an almost visceral desire to use it. One particular night, as this struggle unfolds once more, Kawashima makes a decision to confront his demons, and sets into motion an uncontrollable chain of events seeming to lead inexorably to murder. Kawashima Masayuki is a successful graphic designer living in Tokyo with his loving wife, and their healthy baby girl. Every night, unable to sleep, he creeps from his bed and watches over the baby's crib. But this is no ordinary domestic scene, for on each of those nights, Kawashima has an ice-pick in his hand, and a visceral desire to use it.