Clever, mischievous and surprising, THE FETISHIST is a novel to relish.
Immensely seductive and hugely entertaining, here is life – the stupid and weird and precarious- in a novel that dazzlingly explores obsession, fixation and the condition of attachment.
THE FETISHIST is a triptych observation of obsession occasioning three fundamental players – Daniel, Alma and Kyoko. All three are musicians. Daniel is the refrain of Alma and Kyoko “he done her wrong” songs.
Daniel, whose name Alma points out is an anagram for denial plays for the string quartet, Thanatos who played for the dying and newly dead, a rent for hire fiddler for affluent terminal cases. Nero for a perpetually burning Rome.
Alma and Daniel were once affianced, a relationship brought asunder by Daniel’s affair with Emi, Kyoko’s mother. Kyoko holds Daniel responsible for the killing of her family life, regards him as a Rice King, a disparaging term that describes a Caucasian male’s fetish for Asian women.
Instigating suicide, Daniel is kidnapped by a Kyoko with homicide on her mind. This abduction brings into sharp focus the world of difference between wanting to die and wanting to be killed. It was the difference, thinks Daniel, between judging oneself and being judged by others.
His incarceration awaiting his sentence by his captors gives Daniel ample time to ponder his life and judge his own behaviour. By his own admission, Daniel had a hard time saying no to women, and it was a mix of obligation, vanity and compassion that made him say yes.
Redemption, or what passes for it, is a road taken here, forks and all. “The first step towards feeling sorry for the pain you’ve inflicted on someone else is to feel sorry for the pain that you’ve inflicted on yourself, in relation to someone else. The deep and permanent wound.”
Posthumously published, Katherine Min’s THE FETISHIST is an enthralling and beguiling read that defies conventional categorisation and becomes a magnificent obsession for the reader and a towering testament to a great talented writer.
THE FETISHIST by Katherine Min is published by Fleet/Hachette.