The Woman in the Purple Skirt

The Woman in the Purple Skirt - Natsuko Inamura

Genre: Literary Fiction | Fiction

Release Date: Expected 3rd June 2021

Translated from Japanese

Everybody knows the Woman in the Purple Skirt - she appears neither old nor young, she is not attractive or successful, but she is oddly familiar and people notice her. But nobody notices the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. Nobody notices as she watches the Woman in the Purple Skirt sitting on her reserved bench in the park every day, eating the same cream bun. Nobody notices when she lures the Woman into working as a housekeeper in the same hotel as her and documents her affair with the manager as it spirals. The Woman in the Purple Skirt is being watched at all times - and now you're watching her too.

This story was eeily comforting and darkly intrusive all at once - it is a story in which nothing really happens and nothing is resolved - but it was so uniquely charming that I finished this fairly short novella in one sitting.

We watch our pseudo-celebrity along with our narrator, as she goes about her life, slowly finding her new relationships, new identities, new chapters of her journey and find ourselves drawn in, sharing the obsession about the Woman in the Purple Skirt. It's a story about the dangers of rumours, and how quickly they can spread, about how we are constantly watching others, about the way Women are always too ugly or too beautiful, and about the thin line between obsession and delusion.

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Natsuko Inamura, Faber and Faber and NetGalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

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