‘In this unsentimental novella, a young woman working as a bar hostess and sex worker in Tokyo reckons with several unresolved personal traumas … Based on Suzuki’s own experiences in the adult industry, the book chronicles the young woman’s wanderings from bar to bar, hospital to home, with brutal honesty.’

‘Demonstrates that death is the only way forward. Oozes with maternal cruelty.’

‘There is a vigilance in her sentences. The author takes responsibility for every word.’

‘A unique and propulsive story reminiscent of the emotional elusiveness of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman … With a style both clinical and aloof, the novella unfolds a heartbreaking story about the distance and closeness between mother and daughter.’

Suzumi Suzuki is an acclaimed Japanese sociologist and columnist. She graduated from Keio University majoring in Environment and Information Studies, and later received a master’s degree from Tokyo University. She worked as an adult video actress before becoming a journalist for Nikkei Inc. She is also the author of Sell Your Body, and It’s Goodbye (2016), Flowers for Love and the Womb (2017), A Prostitute’s Bookshelf (2022), and Letters of Correspondence (2021), co-written with Japan’s most acclaimed feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno. Gi