Autofiction

Title: Autofiction
Author: Hitomi Kanehara
Published: 2007 by Vintage
Genre: Says 'original fiction' on the back and I'm just going to go with that...
Pages: 216


First book of the year? Yeah. I've been drawing, writing and playing a lot lately, so reading's taken a back seat for a while. This book, however, put everything else on the back seat, as it turned out to be one of those I couldn't put down. Started reading it on a bus, then continued in bath, and then in bed when I should have been sleeping.

So. Rin is newly married to Shin, and they're flying back home to Japan from their lovely honeymoon. Everything seems peachy keen, until Rin falls asleep and Shin gets up to go to the toilet. She wakes up, becomes certain that he has gone off to seduce and have sex with the stewardess, and shows the reader just how deeply disturbed she can get.

Scary, really.

... also somewhat familiar. I should probably get worried.

Anyhoo! The book then goes on to describe their marriage, and how Rin becomes a successful author, who is one day asked to write autofiction: a fictional autobiography. And for the rest of the book we go back in time, to see just what made Rin miss some gears on the highway.

Told completely from the point of view and through the thoughts of Rin, Autofiction is dark, disturbing, and most of all very good. I'll surely give Kanehara's earlier book, Snakes and earrings, a try if/when I get my hands on it.


"I pray that the plane will crash. He's probably in the lavatory by now. He may already be touching the stewardess waiting inside. His hands may already be touching her. Those hands of my precious husband. Touching. That woman. I want to die. Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps and my entire body is shaking with rage."