Silence Once Begun

September 2, 2013
The enigmatic silence of a wrongfully accused suspect is at the core of the new novel from Ball (The Curfew). In 1977 Japan, Oda Sotatsu is a mild-mannered thread salesman who falls in with a couple of wild characters—the charismatic Sato Kakuzo and the beautiful Jito Joo. After losing a wager to Kakuzo, Oda signs a document claiming responsibility for a series of mysterious disappearances that have baffled authorities in the region. Later, while on trial and in prison, rather than profess his innocence or defend himself, Oda stops speaking. Years later, a journalist, also named Jesse Ball, becomes fascinated with the case and attempts to track down and interview Oda’s family and friends. Most of the novel is written as transcripts of these interviews, which layer together, Rashomon-like, to form an increasingly mysterious and conflicted portrait of Oda and his alleged crime. This methodical presentation makes for coolly suspenseful reading, but it’s soon clear there is more underlying Ball’s investigation than meets the eye. For example, when he tracks down Joo, the normally dispassionate interviewer is overcome with emotion and makes a lengthy and unexpected personal confession. Even so, the truth remains elusive until the final pages. The novel is intriguing and offers a riveting portrait of the Japanese criminal justice system (a guard’s description of the execution procedure is particularly chilling); but how readers react to it will largely depend on whether they feel some of the final twists deepen or cheapen the material.

November 1, 2013
"Jesse Ball" investigates a series of disappearances, a wrongful conviction and a love story in modern-day Osaka, Japan. "I am trying to relate to you a tragedy." So begins the fourth novel from Ball (The Curfew, 2011, etc.), who makes readers' heads spin yet again with a darker but more tempered version of his strange, almost whimsical multimedia creations. It's worth remembering that the author started as a poet, and he is as interested in visual mediums as he is in narrative ones. It's also worth remembering, even as the author says this work of fiction is partially based on fact, that Ball has been known to teach classes on the art of lying. This somewhat noirish thriller has more in common with Ball's uncommon thriller Samedi the Deafness (2007) than his more recent experimentations. It starts with a lost bet over a card game. A young man named Oda Sotatsu makes his living buying and selling thread in the village near Sakai. But young Sotatsu fell in with a bad character, Sato Kakuzo, and a girl named Jito Joo. In premise, it sounds simple. "He and Kakuzo made a wager," Ball writes. "The wager was that the loser, whoever he was, would sign a confession. Kakuzo had brought the confession. He set it out on the table. The loser would sign it, and Joo would bring it to the police station." For this mistake, Sotatsu is convicted of the "Narito Disappearances," the alleged murders of eight elderly people. Ball projects himself into the story as a journalist, which allows him to build his novel from a whirling collage of court transcripts, family interviews, photographs, and confessions both false and true. Through it all, Sotatsu keeps his silence, while Ball delves into the mystery of Jita Joo's role in this tragedy. Ball may or may not explain himself in the end, but there's no denying the fascination his aberrant storytelling inspires.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 15, 2013

Paris Review Plimpton Prize-winning novelist Ball's enigmatic book purports to be based in part on fact. Set in Japan during the 1970s, the story, narrated by journalist Jesse Ball, tells of Oda Sotatsu, who, disillusioned with life, signs a false confession based on a wager. He claims responsibility for the disappearance of more than a dozen elderly people. Oda is sent to jail but refuses to speak and is convicted and executed. The novel describes the events through a series of interviews with Oda's family; with Sato Kakuzo, the man who induced Oda to sign the confession; and with Oda's accomplice, a woman named Jito Joo. The effect of the confession on the local community is dramatic; Oda's family is shunned, his father beaten and refused medical treatment. It's not until the end of the novel that we come to understand the nature of the confession--and of the crime as well. VERDICT This multifaceted narration of a seemingly inexplicable miscarriage of justice cloaked as a political statement creates a kind of Brechtian drama; the detached perspective is chilling, though strangely intriguing. [See Prepub Alert, 7/8/13.]--Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos Lib., CA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
Ball is alarmed, entranced, haunted, and enlightened by silence. A key element in his previous novel, The Curfew (2011), it plays a more harrowing role in this meditative investigation into a tragedy of injustice. After his beloved wife suddenly turns silent, a writer named Jesse Ball becomes obsessed with a 1977 criminal case in Japan involving the disappearance of 11 villagers. A confession signed by Oda Sotatsu, a quiet, dutifully employed 29-year-old man, was delivered to the police station. Sotatsu was arrested and incarcerated and soon stopped speaking. He remained silent during his trial and was promptly executed. Three decades later, Ball travels to Japan to interview Sotatsu's family and find the mystery woman who often visited the doomed man. Ball's spare, meditative, Rashomon-like novel, a work of exceptional control and exquisite nuance, consists of contradictory transcripts, poetic letters, a striking fable, and melancholy musings. Enigmatic black-and-white photographs add to the subtly cinematic mode. With echoes of Franz Kafka, Paul Auster, and Kobo Abe, Ball creates an elegantly chilling and provocatively metaphysical tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)