A Robe of Feathers
Thersa Matsuura
208pp
A bit of a turn away from J-lit translation, but not away from Japan.
Thersa Matsuura is an expat author living near Fuji and specializing in bringing Japanese horror short stories to the English world. She not only employs the ghosts/yokai that make up classic tales passed down for years from Japanese mothers to their children, but even keeps a tone that matches it's source material perfectly.
Matsuura doesn't simply translate old tales, but instead takes old ideas and puts them in new settings, sometimes classic and sometimes modern.
Often I think these short stories could be described as a horror adjacent of sorts. This isn't American horror, it's not 80's horror, or torture porn. This is quite often simple interactions between worlds, sometimes frightening, but just as often more odd or confusing.
An example would be in the story "Hate and Where it Breeds" in which a group of humans is stuck in a train car with various odd classical Japanese monsters of sorts. There is a tenseness, but no cat jumping out scares, and never is there any confusion about how this all could be possible. This is Japan, a place where monsters may well ride on your train.
You can see Matsuura's love of Japan in these stories, along with her careful and unique research that opens up a new world in an enjoyable way.
If I were to offer any criticism of the work, I did find myself having to double back from time to time. This certainly had to do with my circumstance, not completely being focused on the book, but as a word to future readers, the language requires focus and I wouldn't call this overly light reading.
I plan to review Matsuura's other work of short fiction in the next little while and I may have a chance to get a few questions answered from the writer that I'll add to a soon to be published blog. If you have any questions add them in the comments below or send them to my twitter feed @jlit-nitwit
Amazon Japan
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