This is a mystery novel that actually does earn the title of “puzzle box”.Īll of this praise is not to say that it will appeal to everyone. Each chapter introduces another narrator, another format by which they are telling their story, and another shade of guilt, blame, and excuse for each character’s actions. It has been said, correctly so, that the first chapter could stand as a discrete short story, but taking it out of context would lose some of the perverse beauty of the rest of the novel. The almost fifty page first chapter is told in the second person, as Moriguchi gives a speech to her entire class, weaving back and forth across many topics and accusations, capturing the reader in her words as surely as she does her students. Middle school teacher and single mother Yuko Moriguchi is convinced that two of her students were behind the apparently-accidental death of her four-year-old daughter Manami. That is one of the highest praises I can give to a novel, and it earned it. I finished the book yesterday and I feel like I’m still not done with it, like I want to immerse myself in the twisted narrative for longer. I was a bit worried that I would be expecting too much going in, but Confessions did more than enough to live up to my hopes. It’s practically Hitchcockian in how many layers of tension are woven into the very premise.
Even without that personal touch, the premise was enticing: a middle school teacher accuses some of her students of murdering her four-year-old daughter. I went into Confessions, a 2012 novel by Kanae Minato, with high hopes, given the praise my fiancee Andrea had given the book.
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