Swallow A novel

Natsuo Kirino, 1951-

Book - 2025

"When a young single woman in Tokyo decides she's ready to sell anything-even her womb-to escape the precarity of her life, an agency pairs her with a wealthy couple desperate to have a child. The match seems made in heaven. She even looks a little like the wife. But is anything ever that simple? Nothing has ever gone right for Riki. She left her boring hometown in Hokkaido, where she worked at a nursing home, for a better life in Tokyo. But as a temp in the big city she has no job security, and barely scrapes by. She eats the same old discount boiled egg for lunch every day, sometimes for dinner, too. Many of her peers have to take on a side hustle just to make ends meet. So when her friend discovers an agency offering a hefty su...m for egg donation, both leap at the chance for an interview. Meanwhile, former ballet star Motoi Kusaoke and his wife, Yuko, have been trying to conceive for years. After trying what feels like every available option, it seems futile-until Motoi dives deep into his research and learns that, while surrogacy is technically illegal in Japan, there is a company that's found a loophole. Before long, everyone has an opinion on the matter: from Yuko's sex-obsessed, asexual best friend, to Motoi's controlling prima ballerina mother, and even the affable sex-worker-slash-therapist that Riki has been to a couple of times, after she accepted a down-payment to be a surrogate. Acutely funny and addictively page-turning, Swallows pulls at the seams of society, reassessing our understanding of motherhood, self-worth, bodily autonomy, and class. What does it mean to be "in control"? And can money really buy happiness?"--

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1 copy ordered
Subjects
Genres
Novels
Romans
Published
New York : Alfred A. Knopf 2025.
Language
English
Japanese
Main Author
Natsuo Kirino, 1951- (author)
Other Authors
Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda (translator)
Edition
First American edition
Item Description
Translated from the Japanese.
Physical Description
pages cm
ISBN
9780307267580
Contents unavailable.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirino (Real World) serves up an entertaining and thought-provoking burlesque of the fertility industry in Tokyo. Office temp Riki Ōishi, 29, hopes to raise money by donating her eggs. During an interview with a reproductive agency, she's offered a far more lucrative opportunity: to serve as a surrogate mother for the agency's wealthy middle-aged clients Motoi and Yuko Kusaoke. Motoi, a former ballet star, is determined at all costs to pass on his genes. Despite being torn on whether to sacrifice her bodily autonomy in exchange for financial stability, Riki agrees to meet the Kusaokes to discuss the arrangement. It's a sacrifice for the couple, too, especially Yuko, whose IVF treatments failed, because according to Japanese law they must divorce and Riki must marry Motoi before she can be artificially inseminated. The parties come to terms, though, for the unthinkable sum of 10 million yen. Riki then chafes at Motoi's demands and blows a great deal of the down payment on a male sex worker. Yuko, meanwhile, has increasing doubts about the arrangement, especially after Riki gets pregnant and tells Yuko that she's not sure the child is Motoi's. Kirino builds tension with surprising twists as each of the three main characters contends with their shifting feelings about parenthood. This will keep readers glued to the page. Agent: Amanda Urban, CAA. (Sept.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Riki Ōishi still doesn't know who she is or what she wants to do with her life. Will surrogacy be the answer? Without skills or a degree from a prestigious university, 29-year-old Riki is finding it hard to succeed in Tokyo, although she was keen to move there from her small town in rural Hokkaido. Working as a temp, lonely and broke, she's living on boiled eggs and marked-down convenience food. So the idea of becoming an egg donor at a fertility clinic has its financial attractions. But Riki bears a close physical resemblance to Yuko Kusaoke, wife of ballet dancer Motoi. Because the couple can't conceive, Riki is asked to become their surrogate through artificial insemination using her own eggs, in exchange for 10 million yen. Celebrated Japanese author Kirino's dryly observed novel carefully considers the peculiarity of surrogacy: Is it just business, or exploitative, a transaction that takes advantage of "poor women selling their uteruses"? Over time, the characters all seem in two minds about the arrangement. Since surrogacy is illegal in Japan, Motoi and Yuko must divorce (on paper) and Motoi must marry Riki for the plan to go ahead. On a brief trip home, Riki ends up sleeping with an old lover. Then, back in Tokyo, she sleeps with another friend, so when she becomes pregnant (with twins), doubts arise over paternity. Yuko and Motoi start to grow apart, not least because Yuko has no interest in children that aren't related to her. Motoi feels compromised about plans to raise infants if they're not his. Multiple conversations ensue--sometimes repetitively--about the options and ethics of the situation. Class, morality, obligation, and gender all come up for scrutiny as Kirino moves her figures through further emotional responses once the babies are born. The sifting concludes with Riki, who has matured (and suffered) enough, making a decision for all involved. A curiously compelling debate about inequality and the complexity of choice. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.