THE FOREST BRIMS OVER

In this novel by Japanese writer Ayase, the first of her 18 works to be translated into English, a writer's wife transforms into a forest.

Ayase begins with the third-person point of view of an editor named Sekiguchi Masashi, who's visiting the house of Nowatari Tetsuya, a well-known novelist whose salacious debut featured thinly veiled details about his sexy young wife, Rui. None of his subsequent books have been as successful, and Sekiguchi is trying to help him with ideas. While there, he overhears the couple fight, and soon afterward Rui begins to sprout buds and leaves: She's turning into a forest because she suspects her husband of infidelity. Instead of taking her to the hospital, Nowatari writes a novel called Garden. And it’s really good! Sekiguchi finds himself in a moral quandary. "This horrifying situation, and the literary work based on it, were ultimately Nowatari’s sin. Sekiguchi was just supposed to receive his breathtaking manuscript and deliver it to the world....His job was no more than that, he repeated to himself over and over.” Meanwhile, in his own marriage, the editor fails to understand the ways he burdens his wife. In the second section, the point of view switches to the student Nowatari is having his affair with; he loves her “emptiness and purity.” Ayase’s concerns are contemporary gender roles, sexism in publishing (and society generally), and the relationship between exploitation and art. Her examination has depth and nuance. Male characters reflect on the pressures to compete and the perils of the succeed-or-die mentality. Meanwhile Rui’s forest grows and spreads, affecting the entire town. When Sekiguchi moves to another department, the young woman assigned to be Nowatari's new editor asks the writer a single blunt question.

A sprightly, compelling tale with magical realist flair in which a novelist’s muse takes charge of her own story.