Butter

So I also read Hooked by Asako Yuzuki.

And if that name is familiar, she's the author who wrote Butter.

which is the Japanese translated fiction I was really into last year.

And I'm sensing a theme because this book is also about obsession between

two

women.

Butter had to do with a journalist who became obsessed with a black widow serial killer who was also obsessed with food and cookery, and then she became obsessed with food and cookery.

This one is about... a blogger who's she's like the the worst wife ever she's just like a lazy woman blogger where she's like i didn't even cook for my husband she's like i don't want to clean today i don't have a job like she's just kind of like she's going for that in the world of like picture perfect blogging she's like i went to like a super cheap restaurant because the food was fine like that's that's her And then there's Eriko, who is the other main character, who is stalking her.

So Cucina Povera, and Baking For Two, and Seafood Simple by Eric Ripert, like, are all, you know, things that are right there in front.

And I'm just about to start Butter by Asako Yuzuki, and I'm looking forward to that too.

Thanks for sharing that with us, and thanks for being in here, Michael.

[upbeat music] I hope you enjoyed today's conversation with Michael.

Overrated.

I really wanted to like this and there's like so much shouting about it, but Butter, which...

Me too.

We've spoken about this.

On, uh, October 12th, we will be reading "The Only Good Indians" by Stephen Graham Jones.

Uh, then I'll be reading "Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder" by Asako Yuzuki.

And on, uh, October 26th, we'll be reading "Let the Right One In," uh, by John...

How do you, what's that middle name?

Asako Yuzuki is known for writing these really luscious food descriptions in her adult novels.

For instance, in Butter, there's so much food writing in that one.

I'm wondering if Asako's food writing...

In her adult novels, did that sort of present any unique descriptions or translation sensory hurdles for you when you were translating the food in Mari?

It's kind of like seeing a window into someone's worldview and philosophy like it's obvious that food is really important to Asako and the way she views it is in such a joyful intentional way Yeah, for sure.

I was thinking a lot about like the food.

I mean, I read Butter like when it first came out, but when I was drafting Muddy, it was right around the time that Hooked came out.

And I had to be very careful not to read Hooked because I didn't want like, I mean, on the one hand, I didn't want Polly's version of Asako's voice in my head, which is difficult because I'm so intimately familiar with Polly's writing and speaking voice.

It is still related to food.

The book Butter, which was recommended to me by a cheesemonger friend of mine.

It was a really great read and I got some recipes out of that too.

I love magazines, especially food magazines and discovering new recipes and things to cook on the weekends.

That's what I like about translated fiction too.

I'm reading a book for Book Club right now called Butter, and it's translated from, I think, Japan.

And I love reading translations because of kind of a version of what you're saying, because It reminds me of how different our way of storytelling is from other places in the world and that there are any number of ways to tell a story well.

I get in my head about just the cadence of how a story should unfold based off of an American point of view.

And I read something like Butter or Haruki Murakami or...

I don't know, anyone that is a translated work and it's like meditative almost reading it.

Even if it's like a really intense story or like a twist, there's like a lot of twists.