Content area
Full Text
Banana Yoshimoto. Lizard. Ann Sherif, tr. New York. Grove. 1995. ix + 180 pages. $18. ISBN 0-8021-1564-0.
In an interview in the weekly periodical Shukan Bunshun (3 June 1993) Banana Yoshimoto expressed interest in people who have had a bad experience in childhood. This theme is found in most of her writings, including her latest collection of short stories, Lizard. In the title story the narrator elicits from his girlfriend--called Lizard because of a tattoo on her inner thigh--the story of a crazy man's brutal attack on her mother that so traumatized Lizard she temporarily lost her sight. The narrator then confesses his own family crime: his birth resulted from his uncle's rape of his mother. The comfort these two offer each other makes a rather sweet if bizarre modern love story, which culminates in this characteristically superficial statement: "At this very moment, how many people do you think are...