Thursday, December 2, 2021

番外編:Death of the Living Dead Released

Considering my other new translation released this year was Death Among the Undead, you'd almost think this was planned...

One month ago, on Halloween, publisher Ammo announced they'd be publishing my English translation of YAMAGUCHI Masaya's seminal mystery novel Death of the Living Dead soon.  And soon it was, as I can announce now that the book has been released now, both as an e-book as well as in physical form! I already wrote an announcement post last month, so I guess I'm just repeating myself here, but I was asked by Yamaguchi to work on a translation a few years ago, but a revised Japanese edition was released after I had worked on the translation. I was informed that translation advisors/editors worked on my initial translation afterwards to incorporate the revisions, so while the base is my work, I am very grateful to all the other people who worked on the text! I have to admit I haven't seen the final product myself yet, and due to the long timeline behind the project and the extra revisions that had to be made due to the newer Japanese version, I'm pretty excited to have a look at the book myself too finally. It's been quite some time since I last worked on Death of the Living Dead, so I reckon it'd feel fresh even to me!

For those who missed the original announcement post,Yamaguchi's debut novel originally released in 1989 and is one of earliest and definitely one of the best Japanese mystery stories that utilized a supernatural setting to present a fair play puzzle plot detective. It has won several awards for mystery fiction, both during its original release as well as many decades after the release, proving its relevance even now. Set in the United States, this lengthy tale follows Francis "Grin" Barleycorn, a rock punk who after a turbulent time in the old country, returns to his family home: the famous Smile Cemetery in New England. Grandfather Smiley Barleycorn, the person who brought the Barleycorn funeral directing family business to the States and built the empire that is the Smile Cemetery, doesn't have long to live anymore, giving Grin a reason to finally meet his grandfather and his uncles for the first time in his life. Smiley's been in bad health for some time, and his sons are running the company now in his place, but Grin's uncles all have different ideas what to do with the business once Smiley is really  gone. Meanwhile, a strange phenomenom has been plaguing the world: the dead have started to rise. The scientists haven't figure out why yet, there have been several cases across the world where people simply "wake up" from their death and are still able to think, speak and act basically as if they were alive. The only problem: their body is still decomposing. It's amidst these circumstances that mysterious deaths occur at the Smile Cemetery, and it's up to young Grin to solve these deaths, but what's a detective going to do in a world where death isn't as decisive as it used to be?

I read the book for the first time back in 2014, and I was sold immediately. Going through the book again for the translation only rekindled my love for the book. The way the novel makes use of the supernatural element is brilliant, especially considering that this was first released in 1989. Long-time readers of this blog will have noticed that I have developed a love for mystery novels with supernatural elements these last few years, and the concept itself has become very popular in Japanese mystery ficton, but Death of the Living Dead still ranks among the best of the genre. This is also due to the surprising deep way in which the book tackles the theme of death. Sure, mystery novels usually revolve around death, but Death of the Living Dead really delves into the question of what death means for us humans, and there's a lot of discourse and discussion going on the theme of death across the centuries. You'd be surprised how well-researched this book is on the theme of thanatology, without burdening the brilliant puzzler that is at the core of this novel. The book is basically twice the length most books I've translated until now, and it makes good use of the extra page count to present a very tricky plot, but also to talk about everything death.

Anyway, I basically just repeated every single point I already made in my announcement a month ago, so I'll stop right here. Be sure to visit the official website of Death of the Living Dead as I can really recommend this book to any fan of the genre. Death of the Living Dead is funny, dramatic and poignant, but best of all a really clever mystery novel that has been a well-regarded classic in Japan for three decades, and hopefully it'll appeal to the English-reading audience too!

6 comments :

  1. Very timely review, since last week I read both "Death Among the Undead" and "Death Among the Undead." Both books are excellent fair-play mysteries in unconventional settings. Yamaguchi's book, as you said, is funny and poignant. The character "Grin" struck me as a Punk Ellery Queen living in an otherworldly Wrightsville. The most bizarre and brilliant twist of the plot was . . . how to say it without spoilers? . . . a unique characteristic of Grin and a particular murder that he needed to solve.

    I'm curious what it was like translating a Japanese novel set in the US with English (albeit quirky) names.

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    1. I have seen and read enough anime/manga to not be bothered at all at by quirky character name that don't seem to fit the setting at first :P

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  2. I read the online sample and it was really entertaining. The bafflement of the police officer in the introduction when the corpse stood up was hilarious! I always like to pick up a mystery when I do my Christmas shopping and this year, I know which one I'll be getting. (Also, I really like Yamaguchi's choice in chapter quotes, and not just because I just read To Wake the Dead a few months ago.)

    (The sample didn't get to the mystery, but something that stood out to me was the sort of pop-culture influenced version of America. I cracked up at the exaggerated description of New York in chapter two.)

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    1. It's more a Halloween-themed story, but I bet you'll even enjoy it a Christmas read ;)

      And yeah, it's a bit of an exaggerated America at times, which you also see reflected in concepts like the setting of "death as a business model".

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  3. Congratulations! Really glad to hear of Japanese mystery writing being made available for an English audience. ☺️ Would have been even more glad had I not already purchased the Chinese translation... 😅

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    1. Don't worry, it's a great story regardless of the language ;)

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