Scandal

When a respected Catholic novelist by the name of Suguro meets an inebriated woman at a party, he is astounded to hear that she recognizes him from a portrait hanging in a club she claims he patronizes in one of Tokyo's more sleazy night quarters. Though in fierce denial, curiosity gets the better of him, setting in motion a train of events reminiscent of a police procedural, but closer to a spiritual inquiry.

The author's own Catholicism, like that of the novelist Graham Green, with whom he corresponded for many years, was not that of the mute supplicant, but a man bent on putting moral absolutes to the test. Endo accordingly situates his main character, a man of unimpeachable social standing, in a quarter of Shinjuku known for its soapland salons, peep shows and porn shops, and then observes the inevitable erosions and loss of composure. As a tabloid reporter catches the scent of a potentially lucrative story, Endo utilizes the moment to accelerate the narrative. His analysis of what happens when the mooring blocks are kicked from underneath his main character, leads to a number of convoluted plot twists as, troubled by premonitions, he stumbles into the twilight zone of truth and concealment.

The gradual disassembling of a carefully constructed reputation assigns Suguro to a purgatorial state driven more by common fate than orthodox religion, as the city becomes a metaphor, a pilgrims' route to truth and atonement.

Each week "Essentials" introduces a work of fiction that should be on the bookshelf of any Japanophile.