The Gun

(Paperback)

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Description

On a night-time walk along a Tokyo riverbank, a young man named Nishikawa stumbles on a dead body, besides which is lying a gun. From the moment Nishikawa makes the decision to take the gun, the world around him blurs. But Nishikawa's personal entanglements are becoming unexpectedly complicated: he finds himself romantically involved with two women, while his biological father, whom he's never met, lies dying in a hospital. Through it all, he can't stop thinking about the gun - and the four bullets preloaded in its chamber.

Reviews

Praise for The Gun

AWall Street JournalBest Mystery of 2016
AWorld Literature TodayNotable Translation for 2016
An ABA IndieNext Selection
BookRiot 100 Must-Read Novels of Noir

"A thriller in the same elevated sense as isDostoevskys Crime and Punishment or Camuss The Stranger . . . Nature versus nurture, free will versus fate: Such are the themes that flicker almost subliminally through this shocking narrative, which also emits echoes ofPoeand Mishima."
Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

"More a suspenseful study of obsession than a crime novel, Nakamuras noir story, translated by Allison Markin Powell, is about liberation . . . Love, even illicit love, has a way of bringing out the bestor the worstin a person."
The New York Times Book Review

"Chilling."
Toronto Star

"[Nakamura] tightens the screws on his character with eerie effectiveness, making the inevitable outcome shudder on the page."
Chicago Tribune

"[The Gun]offers an addictiveone might even say compulsivenights worth of chillingly unnerving entertainment."
The Richmond Times-Dispatch

"[Nakamura] straddles the crime-literary fiction boundary like few others. It gives a new twist to Chekhovs rule: a gun mentioned in the first actor here, a gun found by a dead body in the opening pagesmust eventually be fired."
Maclean's

"A fascinating, addictive thriller."
The Japan News

"[A] powerful existential thriller."
The Sunday Times (UK)

"A compelling study of a man whose deep wounds begin to open when, by accident, he stumbles across a gun. Nakamura understands how a life can swirl and eddy around an inanimate object, becoming so possessed by it as to suddenly be not a life at all."
Brian Evenson, author ofWindeye

"[Nakamura] spins dark, brooding tales of crime, deftly using acts such as murder and theft as unsettling ruminations on the human psyche and its predilection for darkness."
The Straits Times (Singapore)

"One of the jewels in the Japanese crime-fiction crown, [Nakamura's] debut novel features a nihilistic anti-hero filled with terrible rage."
South China Morning Post

"An unforgettable, heart-pounding journey into the world of psychological suspense."
Crimespree Magazine

"The psychological downward spiral into obsession is what drives this book, and during my reading, I couldnt help but think that Alfred Hitchcock could have created a brilliant film adaptation."
Bruce Tierney, BookPage

"An intense, claustrophobic, and effective noir/philosophical thriller."
International Noir Fiction

"Utterly brilliant."
CounterPunch

"Another masterwork from one of the best modern practitioners of the crime novel."
World Literature Today

"Nakamura does obsessive and delusional very well . . . A fine first effort by a talented writer."
The Complete Review

"Chilling."
Reading Matters

"No crime author out there is currently doing whatFuminori Nakamurais doing. Ive read every novel of hisSoho Presshas translated and theyve all been unique in their subject matter and tone and exactly the same in terms of effectiveness and thewonderfully bizarre, oblique way in which Nakamura approaches the genre."
Gabino Iglesias, Dead End Follies

"[An] intense work of suspense and increasing madness."
Kingdom Books

"An incredibly tense story about how obsession can mold your actions and how an inanimate object can become animate in the 'right' pair of hands."
Old Firehouse Books, Ft. Collins, Colorado

"The author does more in less than 200 pages than most authors could pull off in 600 . . . Stripped down, focused, intense, and worth every second you spend reading."
Bookgasm

"Suspenseful to the last page, Nakamuras existential noir translates well to America, [and is] a timely allegory for our gun-crazed culture."
Library Journal

"This portrait of obsession and madness starts slowly but soon exerts an almost hypnotic pull as we contemplate both the extent of Nishikawas alienation and the primal allure of these little machines for killing."
Booklist

"Drenchedliterallyin noir atmosphere . . . Almost a thesis on the seductive potential of handguns."
Kirkus Reviews

"[Nakamura] paints the story in short strokes, capturing nuance in simple, short sentences, somehow squeezing out the personal in cold prose. His story is small in the sense that it is only one persons strange world we see; yet universal in the way it characterizes how we might be led into it."
Ronald Tierney

Praise for Fuminori Nakamura

"This slim, icy, outstanding thriller, reminiscent of Muriel Spark and Patricia Highsmith, should establish Fuminori Nakamura as one of the most interesting Japanese crime novelists at work today."
USA Today

"The Thief brings to mind Highsmith, Mishima and Dostoevsky . . . A chilling existential thriller leaving readers in doubt without making them feel in any way cheated."
The Wall Street Journal, Best Book of the Year Selection

"Deliciously twisted . . . Nakamura bend[s] the line between what is good and what is evil until it nearly breaks. It's impressive how a book so dark can be so much fun."
Grantland

"His grasp of the seamy underbelly of the city is why Nakamura is one of the most award-winning young guns of Japanese hardboiled detective writing."
Daily Beast

"Nakamura's prose is cut-to-the-bone lean, but it moves across the page with a seductive, even voluptuous agility."
Richmond Times-Dispatch

Author Bio

Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. He has won numerous prizes for his writing, including the Oe Prize, Japan's largest literary award; the David L. Goodis Award; and the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. The Thief, his first novel to be translated into English, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His other novels include Evil and the Mask and Last Winter, We Parted. From the Hardcover edition.