Butter, by Asako Yuzuki. A delicious, feminist mystery

Asako Yuzuki’s Butter mixes mystery with food with feminism with coming-of-age story to produce a refreshing novel. It follows journalist Rika as she pursues an exclusive interview with accused murderer Manako Kajii — notorious for her unusual relationship with men and food.

Butter is yet another loosely feminist modern Japanese novel, joining the ranks of Emi Yagi’s Diary of a Void, Rin Usami’s Idol Burning, Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, and Kikuko Tsumura’s There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, among many others, in exploring what it means to be a woman in Japan beyond the traditionally enforced roles of wife and mother. Gender roles in Japan feel about thirty or forty years different to those of where I live (Australia) and it’s great to see modern Japanese women questioning the patriarchy through fiction. All of Kajii’s victims are lonely, older businessmen who she was in serious relationships with, and a key question of the novel is what women ‘owe’ men versus what they owe themselves, and whether men are fundamentally ‘deserving’ of women’s (maternal) care and attention. This is explored through Rika and Kajii’s strange friendship that develops through a series of longform prison visits, as Rika strives to build enough rapport with Kajii to secure an exclusive interview with her, guaranteeing her a vital promotion.