Strange Houses

Best Laid Plans

Strange Houses
by Uketsu
Pushkin Vertigo
ISBN 9781805335375

A very short review of a book I discovered when I was in a shop attached to the courtyard of Somerset House in London a little while ago (while taking in their slumbering courtyard sculpture), on the way to the August FrightFest. Uketsu is, apparently, a somewhat anonymous YouTuber in Japan who always appears masked and with a voice changer. He (or she) has also swept the reading market by storm and has recently become Japan’s best selling novelist. Two of his/her novels have so far been translated into English, including this one... Strange Houses... and a third is on its way.

This one caught my eye because of the spot varnished paperback cover of a house floor plan in shocking pink, blue and black... with a meat cleaver and a severed hand also plonked onto the design. And, when I opened it, I discovered that 90% of the spreads also included versions of a few floor plans of houses and that “The Chilling Japanese Mystery Sensation” was based on speculation by the characters (who are said to be the author and his acquaintances... but who I assume are completely fictional, despite the afterword of the book designed to make me think otherwise) and that you have to solve the mystery of the oddness of the floor plans in order to try and figure out what's really been going on with the occupants.

Which the characters, kind of do. So plans are shown to the reader and then details of various bits with highlighted areas are speculated on, as to issues like why there is a hidden crawlspace kind of passage here and where that might lead if overlapped with another level of the house... and so on and so forth. 

This is mostly told in terms of a series of conversations, like a screenplay or stage script might be written, in that, aside from various descriptions and scene settings, the characters are all named on the left with a colon and then their speech is written. to the right So, yeah, just like a script. Consequently, this makes for... well certainly a quicker read and, somehow in this case, a somewhat more immersive one too... especially once you see that a lot of the speculation about what the characters think the oddness of the plans mean is quite convincing. 

Once a second set of plans and a third main character is bought into the mix, the tale becomes not just a look at what is going on in these particular houses (one of which has been burned to the ground at some point) but also leads to who is involved in what is obviously a linked series of killings, leading to something rather more ritualistic and sinister, I would say. 

This one held my interest throughout the majority of the tale although, I have to say, I was having trouble remembering the various character names once the cast of the tale, so to speak, is opened up into new areas, involving a whole family history. And the ending... does the author land it or not? I couldn’t make up my mind but s/he certainly made a go of it by including an afterword section by one of the characters, giving the reader a slightly different perspective on things than the author (as a character) did. 

Put it this way, as I conclude here... Strange Houses was read by me over the space of just a couple of hours (if that) and, whether I thought the conclusion was a good pay off to the building mystery or not, I was certainly kept entertained for that time and I may seek out his other translated volume, Strange Pictures, at some point. Worth a look if you want something presented in a slightly different fashion for a small diversion.