Novel set in Hiroshima, guest review by author Isobel Blackthorn

28th December 2018

Return to Hiroshima by Bob Van Laerhoven, novel set in Hiroshima.

Written for a Western audience, Return to Hiroshima is an ultra-noir thriller that provides a vivid and dark portrait of Japan, its culture and society, and an equally vivid and dark portrait, both immediate and fifty years on, of the aftermath of Little Boy – the atomic bomb that fell on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.

Through the eyes of a diverse cast of characters, the reader is drawn into a deep-state reality, shadowy, deceptive, peppered with lies and brutality. The author slowly reveals in short sharp chapters, the twisted and corrupt interplays at work behind the scenes as Japan endures the economic crisis of the 1990s. The story is set partly amid the abandoned high rises built atop the coal mines of Hashima Island near Nagasaki, where Mitsuko wrestles with the reality she is forced to endure, dominated by her monstrous father and mafia-boss, so-called Rokurobei. She escapes to Hiroshima and forms a friendship with Yori, whose drug-crazed and maniacal boyfriend, Reizo, is at work on his novel in a squat in a disused warehouse.

Soon, the reader meets German photographer Beate Becht visiting Hiroshima on an assignment; Belgian graduate Xavier Douterloigne, who returns to Hiroshima to revisit his past; and maverick police inspector, Takeda, who sets out to investigate why a deformed baby is found dead at the foot of the Peace Monument. Each character shines a spotlight on Hiroshima, and each is of course instrumental to the plot. What unfolds is on one level a straight-ahead race to save Mitsuko from danger and reveal hidden truths. On a deeper level, Return to Hiroshima challenges authorised versions of events and their causes and perpetrators, those versions reported by the press.

Superbly written in an easy, fluid style with characters that are complex and believable, Return to Hiroshima contains a taut and artfully constructed plot. While there are a few confronting scenes in this novel, with various victims meeting their awful ends, the ultimate victim in Return to Hiroshima is truth, at once laid bare by the narrator and distorted by the characters. Driving the plot are themes of memory and remembering, childhood trauma and unhealed wounds. Gruesome mutations caused by the atomic bomb are set alongside those caused by secret medical experiments.

Return to Hiroshima is an immersive read, a perfect travel companion for those brave enough to confront harsh realities and uncomfortable truths. Younger readers may not recall the sarin attack in a Tokyo subway that took place in March 1995, and the religious cult, Aum Shinrikyo who claimed responsibility. They may not know of Unit 731 and the atrocities the Japanese meted out in WWII on their prisoners of war, atrocities ignored by the West as we focus all our attention on the Nazis. Cruelty is a global phenomenon, then as now. The author is uncompromising, perhaps because there is no dressing up the horrors meted out by ruthless individuals and those in the grip of destructive ideologies. That said, there is nothing gratuitous in the portrait the author paints. If anything, the author is retrained.

In all, Return to Hirsoshima is an important book, beautifully written, thoughtful and supremely entertaining.

(this review is a modified version of Isobel Blackthorn’s original review, appearing on her blog)

Guest reviewed for the TripFiction Team by author Isobel Blackthorn

Isobel is a prolific Australian novelist. She writes both contemporary/literary, thrillers and dark fiction. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and via her website. 

You can buy Isobel’s books on this link

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