BUTTER

By Asako Yuzuki

Fourth Estate, Rs 599

If fat is a flavour, Butter, by the prolific Japanese author, Asako Yuzuki, is a veritable gourmet banquet. Translated by Polly Barton, Yuzuki's first novel out of 23 to be translated into English is loosely inspired by the real-life incident of the Konkatsu Killer, Kanae Kijima.

Here Kijima inspires the character of Manako Kajii, a “full-figured” food blogger, who is in jail for luring old, lonely, and wealthy men and using them to fund her lavish tastes: she stands accused of killing three of them. Kajii’s case is one of interest to the reporter, Rika Machida, the book’s protagonist and the only female journalist who writes for the magazine, Shumei Weekly.

At the beginning of the book, Rika is married to the job, with no time to cook or eat or even any interest in food. It is her best friend, Reiko, who gives her the idea of appealing to Manako by asking for a recipe. Until then, the accused was known for steadfastly denying audience to reporters. On learning that Manako was an accomplished cook whose last victim had reportedly waxed eloquent about her beef bourguignon, Rika becomes hopeful that the stratagem would work. “To ask a woman who loves to cook for a recipe is to strike them in their weakest, most unprotected spot,” Reiko had pointed out to her.

The glorious depictions of food, of butter melting on the tongue or exuding its aroma from freshly baked Quatre Quarts (pound cake), are the strongest bits of the book. Just as Manako sends Rika on wild pursuits, such as a hunt for imported French butter (when the city is going through a butter shortage) or for ramen topped with butter from a particular shack, to be consumed on a cold night after having sex, Butter sends the reader on a delicious downward spiral that might end up ruining a diet or two. Manako has opinions on those too: “There is nothing in the world so pathetic, so moronic and so meaningless as dieting,” says the portly yet charismatic serial killer who cannot abide two things — “feminists and margarine”.

Manako’s provocative descriptions of food rub off on the almost ascetic Rika and it is through these edible excesses that a picture emerges — that of casual, systemic, almost acceptable, misogyny, an offhand fat phobia, that is not endemic to Japan alone.