Evil and the Mask

Part 1: Past
 
Chapter 1
 
 
            Now I m going to tell you some important facts about your life.
            I was eleven, and my father had called me to his study. In his black suit he leaned back heavily on the leather sofa, perhaps because he was already an old man and standing tired him. A ray of the setting sun peeped through a crack in the curtains. With the orange light behind him, his face was in shadow. Clutching a red, radio-controlled car, still with dirt on its tires, I was aware of how small I was in the center of the large, cold room. Father s breath smelled faintly of alcohol.
            About your education. This does not mean, though, that I hold any great hopes for you. It s just that I intend to leave a cancer in this world. Under my guidance, you will become a cancer. A personification of evil, you could say.
            I couldn t see my father clearly, but it was hard to imagine that he was smiling. No doubt his face was as immobile and expressionless as ever.
            My other children are already adults, occupying important positions in society. That is because they came into the world uninvited, and were free to choose their own paths. Your life, on the other hand, I created on purpose, when I was already past sixty. This is something of a practice in my no, our family.
            I still couldn t see his face.
            By cancer I mean a being that will make this world miserable. That will make everyone wish that they had never been born, or at least make everyone think that the light of

Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. He has won numerous prizes for his writing, including the Oe Prize, Japan s largest literary award, and the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. The Thief, his first novel to be translated into English, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is the recipient of the David L. Goodis Award for Noir Fiction. He lives in Tokyo with his wife.

Praise for Evil and the Mask

Karma runs thicker than blood in Evil and the Mask, the thought-provoking and unpredictable new novel by the Japanese zen-noir master Fuminori Nakamura.
Wall Street Journal

Evil and the Mask is a brilliant novel from one of Japan s most current authors . . . If you love Patricia Highsmith, you ll love Nakamura.
Globe and Mail

Evil and the Mask is a hard-to-put-down novel of ideas and a savage comment on nihilism, both Japanese and global . . . Shouldn't be missed.
Booklist, Starred Review
 
A twisted tale of revenge . . . mixing noir and the existential question of free will.
The Japan Times
 
Deliciously twisted . . . Nakamura bend[s] the line between what is good and what is evil until it nearly breaks. It s impressive how a book so dark can be so much fun.  
Grantland

[Evil and the Mask is] full of themes that everyone can appreciate . . . Nakamura blurs the line between light and dark, good and evil. He illustrates that nothing in life is completely black and white.  
Tulsa Books Examiner

Evil and the Mask is concerned with a twisty sense of morality: is Fumihiro born evil, and can he escape the cruelty associated with his surname?
Omnivoracious

  Deals with basic questions of good and evil, guilt and remorse. Cryptic detectives, smoky nightclubs, and murky streets in Japanese suburbs add to the noir sensibility. At times bizarre, at times hallucinatory, the story is always provocative.
Publishers Weekly

This literary thriller steeps the reader in humanity s dark nature and the struggle of those who try to resist their own moral corruption.
Library Journal
 
Evil and the Mask is an engrossing account . . . The story is violent, revengeful, and often disagreeable but it still contains that hypnotic voice that makes you want to