Hit Parade of Tears

With this impressive collection, translators Bett, David Boyd, Helen O’Horan, and Daniel Joseph bring 11 strange, transfixing, and compassionate short stories from Suzuki (1949–1986) to English-speaking audiences. Suzuki has a real sympathy for the alien and the marginalized—especially young girls and women confused or constrained by societal expectations of female sexuality—and tends to end each story with a bizarre yet fascinating twist. Standouts include “Trial Witch,” wherein a housewife uses her newly granted magical powers to teach her abusive husband a lesson, and “Hey, It’s a Love Psychedelic!” a metafictional forerunner of the cyberpunk genre about a former music groupie discovering a warp in her timeline after Tokyo’s Triangle Building gets filled with salmon roe and eaten like sushi. Readers should be aware of a running thread of fatphobia that does not age well, but the quirky sci-fi concepts and some delightful turns of phrase (a self-centered man is described as “an ad for himself on an infinite loop”) mean these tales largely hold up quite well. SFF fans are sure to be pleased with these slangy, accessible new translations of a master. (Apr.)