Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Hole

The Hole

Oyamada, Hiroko
Boyd, David

Paperback

General FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $14.95

ISBN10: 0811228878
ISBN13: 9780811228879
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: Oct 6 2020
Pages: 112
Weight: 0.28
Height: 0.30 Width: 5.10 Depth: 7.90
Language: English
"Hmmm... this book was off-putting, bizarre and ominous in a way I loved. The story follows a woman who has recently moved to the Japanese countryside with her husband, and nothing much happens but boy, is it unsettling. Oyamada's writing is direct and sparse, made strangely unique by being translated. Both of my parents read it and they both really liked it, said it was unlike anything they'd read before but was easy to digest because it's short. All of Oyamada's work is great actually, but this one is my favorite." --Jack
 
Asa's husband is transferring jobs, and his new office is located near his family's home in the countryside. During an exceptionally hot summer, the young married couple move in, and Asa does her best to quickly adjust to their new rural lives, to their remoteness, to the constant presence of her in-laws and the incessant buzz of cicadas. While her husband is consumed with his job, Asa is left to explore her surroundings on her own: she makes trips to the supermarket, halfheartedly looks for work, and tries to find interesting ways of killing time.
One day, while running an errand for her mother-in-law, she comes across a strange creature, follows it to the embankment of a river, and ends up falling into a hole--a hole that seems to have been made specifically for her. This is the first in a series of bizarre experiences that drive Asa deeper into the mysteries of this rural landscape filled with eccentric characters and unidentifiable creatures, leading her to question her role in this world, and eventually, her sanity.

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