Three men are dead and a woman – Manako Kajii, reviled for her full figure and love of French cuisine – is in the Tokyo Detention House. Did she kill these men or were they victims of society, lost without a maternal influence, destined only for a sad and lonely death? Loosely based on real events, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, published originally in Japan in 2017 and now translated into English, takes this premise and tunnels into Japan’s cultural expectations for women, men and the hunger in all of us.
Rika Machida is a journalist for the Shūmei Weekly who dreams of being the first woman on the editorial board. Corporate life isn’t easy for women – most of them, like her best friend Reiko, quit or change positions to balance motherhood and employment. Only Rika isn’t like most women. She lives on bland, cheap, convenience-store food, is as thin as a rail and lives for her job. She doesn’t dream of family life, though she has a secret boyfriend she sees rarely and briefly. It would take something monumental to get this prized promotion but Rika thinks she’s found just the thing: a private interview with notoriously media-shy serial killer Manako Kajii.
Kajii’s trial had captivated the public’s attention and most people feel the story is complete. Rika suspects there’s more to it. Who is Kajii and did she truly kill these men? Rika’s sure there’s misogyny at play in the public’s perception of her: “What the public found most alarming, even more than Kajii’s lack of beauty, was the fact that she was not thin. Women appeared to find this aspect of the case profoundly disturbing, while in men it elicited an extraordinary display of hatred and vitriol.”
Rika visits the detention centre and Kajii agrees to an interview on one condition: Rika must eat the foods Kajii instructs her to and report back. This begins with rice, soy sauce and butter – not cheap butter, but the expensive imported variety, and a meal at an upmarket French restaurant, where Rika consumes snow crab, pomegranate, caviar, champagne. The assignments Kajii give her grow more private and intrusive and Rika’s life unravels. All the rich food equals weight gain, a problem because “in Japan, it’s thought that it’s beautiful to be thin”. Only now, under the spell of Kajii, Rika’s wondering if there’s another way to live, one where she’s allowed to feel all kinds of hunger and can be freed from fat-phobic ideals. Soon Rika starts to question everything. “Would becoming the first woman to make the editorial desk make men fear her?” Does she want men to fear her or should she fear men? Or should she be scared of Kajii?
The language is rich with sensory detail and food is revered as a celebration of company and friendship. It’s a long book, so be prepared to spend some time working through it, though it’s worth the effort. Butter is about sexuality, freedom, control, guilt and violence. Butter churns these ideas, rolling them around as Rika falls deeper into the mystery of Kajii’s life. There’s a large cast of characters and like the children’s tale at the heart of the book, The Story of Little Babaji, you can’t be sure who is in the wrong and who will be chewed up.
