June brings a host of excellent new novels in translation, including two reissues from Japan, a scintillating Brazilian thriller, a satirical Venezuelan noir, and a quietly elegant character study from France. Thanks, as always, for reading the column! All blurbs are by me.
Carla Madeira, It’s All River
Translated by Alison Entrekin
(Liveright)
Carla Madeira’s tragicomic tale of a woman scorned and a marriage destroyed is a major bestseller in her native Brazil, and I’m psyched to see it available in a new English translation so we can all enjoy this batshit story. It’s All River follows a small-town prostitute as she aggressively pursues the village carpenter, the one man who refuses to sleep with her. Meanwhile, the carpenter’s marriage rapidly disintegrates under pressure from a shared, and shocking, secret. As disturbing as it is hilarious!
Jonathan Jakubowicz, The Adventures of Juan Planchard
(Grand Central)
First published in 2016 and one of the best-selling novels ever published from a Venezuelan writer, The Adventures of Juan Planchard is just as sardonically entertaining in its new English translation. Jakubowicz’s satirical novel of corruption and the business of government follows the titular Planchard, a wheeler and dealer who has transcended his petty bourgeoise origins, now promoting the revolution (and pocketing the returns). Juan Planchard isn’t just a believer: he’s a man who gets things done, an embracer of realpolitik, in short: a conduit for cash, to and from his vast constituency. When a new relationship and a personal tragedy throw his cashflow into flux, all bets are off, and enemies gather to finish off both our narrator and his dwindling ideals.
Yukito Ayatsuji, The Clock House Murders
translated by Ho-Ling Wong
(Pushkin Vertigo)
Yukito Ayatsuji’s novels feature some of the most unique architecture to ever grace the pages of a murder mystery, and it feels fated that his 1980s oeuvre has found a ready readership in today’s housing-obsessed (and housing-deprived) society. In the latest of Ayatsuji’s works to be reissued, a group of students is invited to a mysterious house designed by an eccentric clockmaker to mimic his favored machines, only to be picked off one by one by a vengeful killer.
Valérie Perrin, Tata
translated by Hildegarde Serle
(Europa)
As Tata begins, the narrator receives a call notifying her of her aunt’s death. The only problem? Her aunt supposedly passed away years before. So whose body is buried in her aunt’s grave, and why would she have faked her death in the first place? Through investigating her beloved relative’s disappearance, Perrin’s protagonist unearths a life full of secret loves and hidden happiness, for a fascinating character study that doubles as an elegant mystery.
Seishi Yokomizo, She Walks at Night
translated by Jesse Kirkwood
(Pushkin Vertigo)
This classic Japanese mystery of murder by sleepwalking takes place in the rapidly changing world of post-war Japan, and uses the aristocratic marriage market to examine the relics of feudalism and struggles of feminism. Seishi Yokomizo’s snappy dialogue, biting wit, satirical characterizations, and clever observations are all on full display for a nasty little thriller that pleased me very much.
