TWINKLE TWINKLE
by Kaori Ekuni & translated by Emi Shimokawa
A featherweight romantic comedy, winner of Japan’s Lady Murasaki Award.
In this 1991 first novel, a marriage of convenience both unites and divides unhappy, hard-drinking translator Shoko and Mutsuki, a gay physician whose sardonic boyfriend Kon is very much a fixture on their scene. Mutsuki, a paragon of all the domestic virtues, cooks and cleans efficiently—and remains clueless as Shoko, obviously in love with him, fends off family requests for a baby, then considers artificial insemination, and settles for a compromise ménage. It’s pretty inoffensive—but if you’ve read Stephen Macauley’s popular The Object of My Affection, there’s no really compelling reason to read Twinkle Twinkle.