A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker - NPR - WBEZ's Nerdette -
The New York Public Library - Literary Hub
A New York Times Editors' Choice
"One of the most passionate cases I've ever read for female interiority,
for women's creative pulse and rich inner life." ―Katy Waldman, The New
Yorker
"Always expect the unexpected when you're not expecting." ―Sloane
Crosley
A woman in Tokyo avoids harassment at work by perpetuating, for nine
months and beyond, the lie that she's pregnant in this prizewinning,
thrillingly subversive debut novel about the mother of all deceptions,
for fans of Convenience Store Woman and Breasts and Eggs
When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job to escape sexual
harassment at her old one, she finds that as the only woman at her new
workplace--a manufacturer of cardboard tubes--she is expected to do all
the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can't clear away her
coworkers' dirty cups--because she's pregnant and the smell nauseates
her. The only thing is . . . Ms. Shibata is not pregnant.
Pregnant Ms. Shibata doesn't have to serve coffee to anyone. Pregnant
Ms. Shibata isn't forced to work overtime. Pregnant Ms. Shibata watches
TV, takes long baths, and even joins an aerobics class for expectant
mothers. She's living a year of rest and relaxation, and is finally
being treated by her colleagues as more than a hollow core. But she has
a ruse to keep up. Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with the
help of towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app that tracks every stage of
her "pregnancy," the boundary between her lie and her life begins to
dissolve.
Surreal and absurdist, and with a winning matter-of-factness, a light
touch, and a refreshing sensitivity to mental health, Diary of a Void
will keep you turning the pages to see just how far Ms. Shibata will
carry her deception for the sake of women, and especially working
mothers, everywhere.
