A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR - Marie Claire
"A taut and compelling depiction of loneliness and obsession." --Paula
Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the
Train
"[It] will keep you firmly in its grip." --Oyinkan Braithwaite,
bestselling author of My Sister, the Serial Killer
"The love child of Eugene Ionesco and Patricia Highsmith." --Kelly Link,
bestselling author of Get in Trouble
A bestselling, prizewinning novel by one of Japan's most acclaimed young
writers, for fans of Convenience Store Woman, Eleanor Oliphant Is
Completely Fine, and the movies Parasite and Rear Window
I think what I'm trying to say is that I've been wanting to become
friends with the Woman in the Purple Skirt for a very long time...
Almost every afternoon, the Woman in the Purple Skirt sits on the same
park bench, where she eats a cream bun while the local children make a
game of trying to get her attention. Unbeknownst to her, she is being
watched--by the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, who is always perched just
out of sight, monitoring which buses she takes, what she eats, whom she
speaks to.
From a distance, the Woman in the Purple Skirt looks like a schoolgirl,
but there are age spots on her face, and her hair is dry and stiff. She
is single, she lives in a small apartment, and she is short on
money--just like the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, who lures her to a
job as a housekeeper at a hotel, where she too is a housekeeper. Soon,
the Woman in the Purple Skirt is having an affair with the boss and all
eyes are on her. But no one knows or cares about the Woman in the Yellow
Cardigan. That's the difference between her and the Woman in the Purple
Skirt.
Studiously deadpan and chillingly voyeuristic, and with the off-kilter
appeal of the novels of Ottessa Moshfegh, The Woman in the Purple
Skirt explores envy, loneliness, power dynamics, and the vulnerability
of unmarried women in a taut, suspenseful narrative about the sometimes
desperate desire to be seen.
