Grotesque

Tokyo prostitutes Yuriko and Kazue have been brutally murdered, their deaths leaving a wake of unanswered questions about who they were, who their murderer is, and how their lives came to this end. As their stories unfurl in an ingeniously layered narrative, mediated by Yuriko’s older sister, we are taken back to their time in a prestigious girls’ high school—where a strict social hierarchy decided their fates—and follow them through the years as they struggle against societal conventions.

Shedding light on hidden aspects of Japanese society, Grotesque is a psychological investigation into the female psyche and a work of noir fiction that confirms Natsuo Kirino’s compelling storytelling.