translated by David Boyd
available from New Directions
Our narrator, Asa, moves to the country after her husband accepts a transfer. That means quitting her (unfulfilling) job, living (rent-free) next door to her in-laws, and adjusting to a new life and a new way of being with her (often absent) husband. One day Asa spots a strange animal -- large, black, furry -- and follows it into the tall grasses that flank the river, only to fall into a hole that seems especially made for her. This seems to trigger a new path for Asa, one that may lead to her fate.
This space was a big fan of Oyamada's debut, The Factory, so it should be no surprise that we find The Hole to be excellent. It's a destabilizing read. Throughout this brief novella (it clocks in at a swift 92 pages), Asa's experiences are pretty mundane -- sometimes terribly so -- but also kind of odd. Her days and sparse interactions aren't so strange or surreal as to signal anything specific in flashing lights, they just seem a little...off. The world Asa comes to inhabit is thus recognizable but also menacing. The Hole is confounding, but it perhaps suggests something important about work, life, gender roles, and what is asked of women so routinely by the world that we often don't recognize how great and terrible such sacrifices can be.