This book follows the story of Lucie Blackman, a young woman from the UK who disappears in Japan while working as a "hostess" in the Roppongi neighborhood of Tokyo. Parry is diligent in his research. He does super deep dives in to the various roles of strippers, waitresses, hostesses, and prostitutes in the kind of seedy Japanese area where Blackman worked. He tells us all about Blackman herself, as well as her family. I know more about the tension within the Blackman family than I know about that of my own. We get a minute by minute account of Blackman's disappearance and learn about the impact her disappearance and the later discovery of her body has on her siblings and parents. We learn about the man who would later go on to murder Blackman and at least one other woman, as well as his family.
It's all diligently laid out in a super organized fashion. The amount of time and energy taken to follow this case, from the search through the trials that lasted over a decade, must have been enormous. It's a grueling read and sometimes hard to think about what people are going through even now.
But in the end I have two major beefs.
1) Why? Why did Parry follow this case so closely? Blackman doesn't seem that compelling a character and young women who are involved in the sex trade industry, however tangentially, are of course going to be more vulnerable than most. Blackman wasn't even the only woman from the UK who went missing in Japan during the time period covered. I'm not saying that Blackman's story doesn't deserve this retelling, of course it does, but I just want to know more about why Parry himself found this case to be the one that would turn into his true crime opus. It's a case that's rather run of the mill in true crime circles, which doesn't mean that it isn't an important story that needs to be told, but it needs more explanation as to why it's important.
2) What does the title mean? Who are the "people" and what is this "darkness"? At first, I thought that there must be more than one kidnapper in this case, but it turns out that Joji Obara was a lone actor, so that doesn't make sense as an explanation. Is it the people involved in the weird Roppongi sex trade? If so, shouldn't the focus on the novel be on clearly motivated sexual crimes (it's not clear if Blackman was sexually assaulted or not)?
Neither of these things made me dislike the book, but I just am a bit confused about its purpose.
If you're a true crime fan, you should definitely read this, but if you're not on the true crime bandwagon, there are probably better entries out there for you to read.
Perhaps "people who eat darkness" is a Japanese saying or is related to some kind of mythology. Japanese horror is based a lot around specific kinds of spirits and what they are seeking/bound by. But Parry should have explained that and missed an opportunity if so.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the minute-by-minute account makes me think of the book you gave me, "The Lifespan of a Fact." How does Parry know the minute-by-minute? Is he assuming, stretching, dramatizing? I'm now fascinated by the decisions non-fiction authors make when retelling a story. Maybe I'll pick this up.