Masks - (Vintage International) by Fumiko Enchi (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A stunning and understated debut novel of seduction and infidelity about a woman who, devastated by the death of her son, takes an increasing interest in the personal affairs of her widowed daughter-in-law.

Following the devastating death of her son, Mieko Toganō takes an increasing interest in the personal affairs of her widowed daughter-in-law, Yasuko. She skillfully manipulates the relationships between Yasuko and the two men who are in love with her, encouraging a dalliance that will have terrible consequences. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, is Mieko's mentally-handicapped daughter, who has her own role to play in her mother's bizarre schemes.

From the Back Cover

'Clear and powerful' (Kirkus), Masks is perhaps Fumiko Enchi's finest work and her first to be translated into English. In this stunning and subtle novel about seduction and infidelity in latter-day Japan and about the destructive force of feminine jealousy and resentment, Mieko Togano, a handsome and cultivated woman in her 50s, manipulates--for her own bizarre purposes--the relationship between her widowed daughter-in-law, Yasuko, and the two men in love with her.

Review Quotes

"A subtle examination of universal female behavior." --People

"[Enchi's] allusions to the masks of Nō plays and to the classic The Tale of Genji, the brilliant way she layers and interweaves the ancient, the more recent past and the present are haunting and rich. A fictional enchantment." --Publishers Weekly

"Enchi's writing has some of the same amniotic fluidity as Tolstoy's, an almost bodily, floating immersion into the effortless habitat of the story." --The American Reader

"Clear and powerful.... Almost imperceptively woven." --Kirkus

About the Author

FUMIKO ENCHI was born in Tokyo in 1905, the daughter of the great Meiji scholar Ueda Mannen. She is the author of many novels and stories, and has produced a ten-volume translation of The Take of Genji into modern Japanese. Masks was first published in Japan in 1958.