On Parole: A Novel by the Author of Shipwrecks [Hardcover]

Akira Yoshimura (Author), Stephen Snyder (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2000

A man murders his wife, wounds her lover, and sets the lover's home-with the lover's mother in it-on fire. Sixteen years later, 50-year-old Shiro Kikutani, a former high-school teacher serving a life sentence for this crime, is released. In jail, he had thought of nothing but freedom. His release, however, creates a series of obstacles for which he is not prepared. While he continually examines his conscience, he feels no remorse. On parole, he slowly begins to lead a normal life, and that life seems livable, until his new wife pressures him to express remorse he does not feel. Once again, Yoshimura has written a finely detailed, subtle, powerful story that explores the fragile life of a murderer and the quality of freedom in an unforgiving society.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As in his previous novel, Shipwrecks, Yoshimura uses an unusual situation to raise provocative questions about individual responsibility and society's treatment of the disenfranchised. From the start, the writer exhibits the technical excellence that has made him a bestselling author in Japan as he describes the experiences of Shiro Kikutani, a man who has just been released to a lifetime of parole after spending 16 years in prison for murdering his adulterous wife. Kikutani's time in jail has stunted his ability to act independently, so that the first chapter finds him in a halfway house, suffering abdominal pains because he is unable to walk from his room to the bathroom down the hall. "The realization that he could open the door of his own free will and walk to the toilet without being watched by a guard filled him with something approaching terror." Under the tutelage of his gentle parole officers, Kikutani gradually overcomes this fear and others, learning to walk out of lockstep and ride escalators, handle money, keep a job (once a teacher, he is demoted to working as a janitor in a chicken factory). Yoshimura describes each of these episodes in minute detail, patiently creating a finely calibrated portrait of a taciturn man whose emotional life has been blighted by his imprisonment and whose hard-won equanimity unravels under the relentless demands of those around him. His parole officers pressure him to get married after a long adjustment period, but when his new wife insists he must repent of his crime, which he always considered inevitable and not his fault, he is unable to explain his true emotions. Under increasing stress, he snaps. Yoshimura's evocations of Japan's cities, jails and workplaces are precise, and his spare, sensual prose has all the intensity of poetry, so that the mundane circumstances of Kikutani's reintegration hold the reader's attention despite the slow pacing. And as events move inexorably toward the novel's violent climax, a vivid psychological portrait emerges of a man no longer able to express his own will. (Feb.) FYI: The paperback edition of Shipwrecks will be released simultaneously.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Written in 1988 by one of Japan's most prolific writers and excellently translated here, this riveting tale of crime and punishment follows the life of Shiro Kihutani, a mild-mannered high school teacher leading a predictable life. He and his wife are childless but reasonably content; they are also successful in their respective careers. When Kihutani receives an anonymous note detailing his wife's infidelity, he becomes consumed by feelings of betrayal. Upon finding the adulterous couple in bed, he violently stabs his wife to death and wounds her lover, follows the lover to his home, torches it, and accidentally kills the lover's mother. He is sentenced to life imprisonment but is released early for exemplary behavior. Under the watchful eyes of his probation officer, he starts to lead a predictable life. But as he considers his past, he decides that he was really not guilty--he was provoked and has no remorse. Soon he decides to marry again. All is well until he begins to feel a familiar, growing rage. For larger public libraries.
-Janis Williams, Shaker Heights P.L., OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 244 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1ST edition (February 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151002703
• ISBN-13: 978-0151002702
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #851,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SIMPLY WOW!, March 7, 2000

By 

Old School but Kicking "Foggy" (Bayville, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On Parole: A Novel by the Author of Shipwrecks (Hardcover)

If you are buying just one book this week or month, make it this one. On Parole is beautifully and intelligently written. The story itself is so gripping that you won't be able to put the book down until the very end. And then you will take a deep breath and think it all through.Truly an amazing book.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent study of freedom and constraints, October 28, 2000

By 

M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On Parole (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

This is a story of a man paroled from an indefinite sentence for a double murder - a man who is driven by fear and revulsion but whose only sense of guilt is in his inability to feel guilt.

The novel begins on his first night on parole; it slowly reveals his past, his slow adjustment to the freedom from prison and the burden of life-long parole, his tentative reaching out for relationships with other humans ...

The story is well-written in a slow pace that matches the adjustment to a world outside prison quite unlike the world at the time of his imprisonment. The joy of the book is in the details - the seeming heaviness of shoes after years of prison canvas shoes, the steaming miso after years of soup cooled before it reached your cell. Through these details the author provides a psychological novel exploring guilt, redemption, freedom, restriction, social ties ....

This book is well worth reading, well worth a thoughtful reading.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully flowing story!, July 29, 2000

By 

M. T. Guzman "squeakychu" (Rockville, MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Parole: A Novel by the Author of Shipwrecks (Hardcover)

Shiro Kukatani, a high school English teacher, has been released on parole after 15 years in prison. He slowly reacquaints himself with the society he knew prior to his imprisonment. Feeling guilty that, despite his long years of confinement, he feels no remorse for his crime, Kukatani must adapt to living independently again albeit under the supervision of his probation officers.

ON PAROLE is a story unadorned with fluff, moving slowly and simply with words that evoke deep thought and emotions. It examines Kukatani's feelings of tentativeness as he emerges from prison. Speaking of his attempts to reenter a world beyond prison bars, the reader can feel Kakatani's yearning to reach back into his former life, the fascination and repulsion of discovering an environment that continued to change despite his stagnant years of imprisonment, and his longing to connect to other people while overpowered by his fear to do so. In essence, the story describes how a parolee's life can never return to that of the past. The deed that sent Kukatani to prison is not the story, but rather it's the psychological adaptation of a parolee to what lies beyond the prison's gate and the question as to whether there is such a thing as true rehabilitation of a criminal.