Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

by Asako Yuzuki

‘Don’t you think that’s a disease of the contemporary age? It feels like these days our value is determined by how much effort we make on a daily basis. That matters even more than our results. After a while, the concept of effort starts to become mixed up with things feeling difficult, and then you reach the point where the person seen as the most admirable is the one suffering the most.

So this was the kind of wall that Kajii had been talking about, Rika thought. They didn’t have to be made of hard bricks and cold concrete. They could be made of sweet, soft dough – and still offer protection.

My paternal grandmother – she’s dead now, but she used to make us fresh doughnuts and ohagi. She was a beautiful, domestic woman, with a great talent for supporting men. My aim is to become like her.’