"Japanese Gothic" | Reviewed by Pat Sainz

“Japanese Gothic,” by Kylie Lee Baker, weaves together current times and 1800’s Japan in a novel that blends horror, Japanese mythology, and ghostly apparitions that build tension and create a looming sense of dread. 

Lee Turner flees to his father’s house in Japan following a disaster of his own making at his college in the US. He carries with him a tragic background in which his mother disappeared when he was only 12. Lee is riddled with insecurity around his cold father and burdened with a personality that allows him to fade into the background. Lee also is addicted to numbing drugs.

Lee’s bedroom has a wall that is literally a door between 2026 and 1877. Sen, a young female samurai in training, appears through the wall. Lee and Sen cross into each other’s worlds. Lee introduces Sen to his father and Hima, his father’s strange, yet kind, girlfriend. Sen’s father would kill Lee on sight should he see him.     

      Sen is the product of a violent former samurai she calls Chichiue (father). He is the last living samurai following a revolt in 1877 which ended the samurai reign and led to the era of Japanese emperors. Chichiue spends his days training Sen in the ways of the samurai. He naively believes he and Sen can train others and bring back the days of the samurai. 

      Chichiue ignores the rest of his family who are starving and subject to his dark moods. Chichiue asks Sen to murder in unspeakable ways. Sen knows he will kill her if she doesn’t face death and killing in the samurai tradition.

      When Sen and Len meet each other through the wall, they each have one request. Len wants Sen to find his mother. He believes Sen can do so because she is from the dead. Sen wants Len to tell her the date she dies and how death takes her. Modern technology allows Sen to do that.

        As Lee and Sen navigate their fraught situations, they become close. A simple touch of their hands causes both worlds to literally fall away in a way that frightens them.

        Woven into this rich story are references to Japanese folktales that have significance in the lives of Lee and Sen. Stories of Otohine, daughter of the god of the sea and Urashima Taro, a human kept by her for 300 years, are noteworthy for their connections to both worlds.

        Kylie Lee Baker is the author of “Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” in which Japanese mythology and the days of COVID intertwine. Weaving stories between the past and present seems to be her specialty. I enjoyed both books.

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