Book Review: Audition by Ryu Murakami

Seven years after the death of his wife, Aoyama's son Shige makes the suggestion -- "Why don't you find yourself a new wife, Pops?" He doesn't take his son too seriously, at first, but the idea takes root, and he tells his friend Yoshikawa about it. Yoshikawa, who works in the film industry, thinks that a new wife is just what Aoyama needs, and to help him find one, he pitches the idea of holding auditions for a fictional movie. He can screen each of the young women as a potential bride. Hesitant at first, Aoyama eventually gives in and goes with the idea.

With the project underway, the two men begin skimming through the responses to their call for actresses, and almost immediately, the picture and brief blurb from Yamasaki Asami catches Aoyama's eye. A one-time ballerina in training, she proffers just what he's looking for, and he becomes infatuated with her.

But Yamasaki isn't quite what she seems to be, as Aoyama finds out much too late.

It takes a bit to shock me, what with all the horror novels in my collection and movies I've seen, and Ryu Murakami's tale delivers. Even though hints appear throughout the story that something may not be quite right with Yamasaki, the last chapter of the book takes an unexpected and truly gruesome turn. And I couldn't put the book down once I started. Audition turns what could have been a typical story of a man's search for love into a story of surprising horror.

Caesar has seen the movie version and warned me about how intense the last part was, and the book lives up to it. From his questions, though, I understood that a few details from the movie aren't in the book which lead me to believe that the movie was made more purposefully gruesome. So it's a must see for me; I've added it to my rental queue. I just hope the movie, for me, lives up to the book.

Audition
by Ryu Murakami
W.W Norton & Company
ISBN: 978-0-393-33841-6
softcover, 190 pages

borrowed book from Caesar

Image from Ghost Radio