The Hole

Reviews

"As Oyamada’s slim, beguiling novel unfolds, the eerie atmospherics steadily ascend from unease to maximal uncanny..." — 4Columns

"The Hole magnifies the plight of some younger adults, particularly women. Work is banal. Childrearing is unappealing. And being a housewife is not, as one of Asa’s older neighbors describes it, “a summer vacation that never ends.” What, the novel asks, is left for a woman to do?" — Asian Review of Books

"The Hole tells a fantastical story, as translated by David Boyd, in which increasingly bizarre illusions blend into reality, with a reclusive adult at the center. Oyamada unsettles readers, not allowing us to remain comfortable in the reality she creates, which makes for a beguiling read." — Booklist

"It takes a writer of great talent to mold the banality of the everyday into the stuff of art, and to build an entire world around a metaphor other writers might quickly deploy and cast aside, but Oyamada is in complete control of her talent. " — Japan Times

"Oyamada’s atmospheric literary thriller puts a fresh, gripping spin on the bored housewife set-up." — Publishers Weekly (starred)

"The Hole is Oyamada’s second novel, and the second to be translated into pitch-perfect contemporary English by David Boyd....Brilliant." — Alex Andriesse, Reading in Translation

"Oyamada's slender novel belies a multi-layered, complex examination of contemporary disconnect and isolation so chillingly affecting that the surreal quickly turns convincingly plausible, and then all too insistently real." — Shelf Awareness

"Oyamada’s greatest strength lies in keeping readers feeling discomfited... [The] whole narrative shudders not at mysterious creatures or secret family members but at the banality of life." — Spectrum Culture

"Surreal and mesmerizing." — Hilary Leichter, The New York Times

"The desire to escape the doldrums of late summer, for both the isolated Asa and the (likely lockdown-weary) reader, is telling of the current moment’s general malaise." — The Seattle Times

"Horrific and scary, while at the same time affirming and beautiful." — Rumaan Alam, The New Republic