| It
is said that marriage is about compromise, and no one understands
this more than newlywed Noriko, who marries into the well-established
Shito family. Four generations, eight in-laws—all under
one roof—is an untenable proposition, unsettling at best
for any bride, but Noriko’s new family members are sweet
and caring. Living with them is a delight, and Noriko seems to
have the perfect marriage.
Yet, the appearance of a disheveled
man—asking suspicious questions about her new in-laws—plants
a seed of doubt in Noriko’s mind, while she is hanging laundry
one morning. Paranoia grows. The unusual behavior of her new family,
which she once perceived as charming eccentricities, now appear
to be sinister in nature. Their kind smiles, once filled with
warmth, now disguise dark secrets. As Noriko delves deeper into
the family’s machinations, she awakens to the horrifying
reality of “marital compromise.”
Asa Nonami is the award-winning author of The Hunter
(Kodansha International). She is the first recipient of the Japanese
Mystery and Suspense Award and has won the Naoki Prize (Japanese
equivalent of The National Book Award), joining a long and distinguished
list of translated Japanese masters of popular fiction.
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PRAISE
FOR NOW YOU’RE ONE OF US
“Asa
Nonami's Now You’re One of Us does for marriage
what Jaws did for a day at the beach, and males and females
alike will surely get a chill out of it.”
— Joe B.
Mauceri, fearsmag.com
“This
pulpy family psychodrama is hugely entertaining—like watching
some filmed version of
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from an adapted screenplay
by Mario Puzo and directed by Yasujiro Ozu.”
— TIME Asia
“At
first, Now You're One Of Us ambles along like one of
Yasujiro Ozu's movies about Japanese home life, a drama of manners
about marriage and extended families. Then it reveals its real
subject by degrees— how a cult mind-set works to seduce
outsiders and break their resistance— and it goes from Ozu
coziness to full-blown Takashi Miike madness. In a good way, that
is.”
— Serdar Yegulalp,
www.thegline.com
“Creepy
read.”
— Daily Yomiuri
“The
tropes of traditional, Western horror are completely ignored in
this Japanese novel, and yet it evokes a sense of dread which
is nothing less than genuinely disturbing [...] Asa Nonami has
crafted a fascinating horror story that lingers in the imagination
long after the final page has been turned.”
— HorrorReader.Com
“Jolting
and disturbing, this is a powerful work;
it’s an unconventional tale despite the conventional
gothic trappings.”
— hellnotes.com
“I'm
guessing the author intended this disturbing tale as a critique
of contemporary Japan, with its culture of rigid conformity. It
excels nonetheless as a straightforward exercise in creeping apprehension,
a real triumph of so-called quiet horror.”
— fright.com
“This
novel is in the great tradition of Daphne du Maurier and Mary
Roberts Rinehart, with lots of atmosphere and cryptic clues, and
the creepy plotlines just pull us further and further into the
darkness. ”
— The Globe and
Mail
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