こちらあみ子 (ちくま文庫)

There’s a line in the movie *A Love Like a Bouquet* that goes, “That person is the kind who wouldn’t feel a thing even if they read Natsuko Imamura’s *Picnic*.” Curious about what kind of book it was, I decided to read *Kochira Amiko*, the collection that includes this short story. As it turned out, I fell into the third category: “people who can’t understand the story.” I could tell something unsettling was happening, but I didn’t grasp its meaning until I read a spoiler. Like “Picnic,” many of Natsuko Imamura’s works depict the dark corners of the human psyche from the perspective of people with distorted self-perception. Roughly speaking, they might fall under the genre of psychological horror, but the contrast with her gentle prose—which chronicles ordinary daily life—creates a unique worldview.