In Piercing by Ryu Murakami, two broken characters spend a night with each other, not knowing that they both have suffered an abusive childhood, which in turn has made them mentally unstable. Kawashima appears to be a happily married man with a new baby, but inside, he fears that his abusive past will cause him to lose control and hurt his little girl. He convinces himself that if he kills someone else, he will be able to control those urges, so he lies to his wife about a business trip and then goes out to hire a prostitute and kill her in a hotel room.

Chiaki is the unlucky girl he hires, but Kawashima doesn’t know that she is just as damaged as he is, and the night will not go how he has so carefully planned.

The Bigger Picture

The most terrifying aspect of Ryu Murakami’s horror novel Piercing – initially published in 1994 (although it was translated into English only in 2008), is not the violence. It isn’t even the taut, brutal tension or the real implication of impending cruelty that is a constant theme throughout the book. No, the most scary part of Piercing is its characters, and by that, I mean how horrifyingly real they are. 

The two main psychotic “protagonists” in this book are not cool, smooth-talking, suave, Hannibal Lecter-esque figures. They are people who are just as accurate as you or even your neighbor. These characters have seemingly real lives with ordinary families, though if you look deeper, they have truly disturbing and dirty backgrounds. Frail, pained, and hurt yet terrifyingly human, these characters are looking for love, reassurance, and comfort while seeking to escape their past, although they are constantly drawn towards violence. 

The story of Kawashima Masayuki is the main protagonist of Piercing. A young man, he has escaped his murky, violence-tainted past to become a professional businessman, a devoted husband, and a father. However, when Masayuki starts to have a hot, ferocious desire to stab his young infant daughter, Masayuki decides the only way to escape this fear is by taking them out on another victim. To make this plan of action a reality, he painstakingly scribbles everything into a notebook, but all this goes awry when he realizes that his intended victim is just as deranged and volatile as him. 

To make this plan of action a reality, he painstakingly scribbles into a notebook all his plans. Still, all this goes awry when he realizes that his intended victim is just as deranged and volatile as him. This book is more of a mediation on the nature of damage and examines how we mask our deepest wounds and sometimes even try to ignore them. Finally, it tries to ask the question—can we remember the pain, move on, and even create something beautiful from our pain instead of hiding it behind a mask/curtain?

Everyone’s running around comparing wounds, like bodybuilders showing off their muscles. And what’s unbelievable is that they believe they can heal the wounds like that just by putting them on display.

Final Verdict

Piercing is a short, disturbing novel about mental illness and abuse that can be easily read in a day. It cuts right to the point, with deliberate, almost mathematical precision, to create a terrifyingly actual situation with characters that look as normal as possible. There is no pointless blood fest or cheap thrills. And while the book’s characters are complex to like, it is challenging to ignore them. 

This book may not be suitable for everyone, however if you are looking to read something different in the horror genre, then this book is something you might want to add to your list.