In this passage, for example, Nonami reveals Kazuhito to be a deft manipulator, appealing to Noriko’s vanity by suggesting that Ei’s endorsement carries special significance: Thanks to a fluid translation by Michael and Mitsuko Valek, Asa Nonami’s simple, unfussy prose draws the reader into Noriko’s insular world, showing us how a simple girl from a working class family is lured into the Shitos’ web. Though the Shitos offer reasonable, measured responses to Noriko’s inquiries, she begins wondering if the Shitos run an illicit business… or worse. The Shitos’ oddly muted, impersonal response to his death further arouses Noriko’s suspicion, as do the family’s clandestine midnight meetings. Though Kimie is quick to dismiss him as a troubled tenant who’s fallen on hard times, Noriko can’t shake the feeling that the neighbor was about to divulge something damning - a feeling intensified by his mysterious death in a fire several days later. Shortly after Noriko arrives at the Shitos’ Tokyo home, a strange, slightly disheveled neighbor approaches her while she works in the garden. Even the Shito matriarch, ninety-eight-year-old Ei, welcomes Noriko to the clan by declaring her the family’s “treasure” and “future.”

Her husband Kazuhito is handsome and utterly devoted her mother-in-law Kimie, generous and uncritical and her sister-in-law Ayano, solicitous to everyone in the household, including Kazuhito’s oddly child-like brother Takehami. Not only are her in-laws wealthy and well regarded by their neighbors, they’re also quick to embrace her as a member of the family. Noriko, the young heroine of Asa Nonami’s Now You’re One of Us, initially thinks she’s hit the marriage jackpot.

Now You're One of Us by Asa Nonami