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‘Butter' is a novel to be savoured slowly but it can also be devoured

Butter Asako Yuzuki Fourth Estate I received Butter courtesy of Exclusive Books, and I devoured it with the same eagerness and delight that threads through its pages. Asako Yuzuki's novel is a feast of sharp social commentary, rich sensory detail and unsettling intimacy. I couldn't put it down. So entranced was I by her descriptions that I even tried a few of the dishes mentioned, most notably the rice with butter and soy sauce. Perhaps I used the wrong kind of butter, because in the end, reading about the dish proved far more satisfying than eating it. 'Men putting on weight is different from women putting on weight.' So declares the boyfriend of Rika Machida, a Tokyo-based journalist on the cusp of making history as the first woman on the editorial desk at the Shūmei Weekly. It's a seemingly offhand comment, but in Butter, Asako Yuzuki wields such moments like a cleaver, cutting straight through the fatphobia and quiet misogyny baked into everyday life. What follows is a compelling, genre-blending novel that interrogates gender, appetite, trauma and the politics of the body with a sharp, satirical edge. Loosely inspired by the real-life case of Kanae Kijima, dubbed the 'Konkatsu Killer,' a home cook convicted of murdering three male lovers, Butter reimagines her as Manako Kajii, or Kajimana. Like her real-life counterpart, Kajii is a target of relentless media body shaming. But beyond the headlines, Yuzuki builds a complex character: a culinary seductress whose gourmet tastes and unapologetic appetite spark both fascination and revulsion. When Rika, under pressure to land a sensational scoop, writes to Kajii requesting the recipe for an infamous beef stew — reportedly the last meal of one of her victims — it unexpectedly opens the door to a series of visits at the detention centre. What begins as journalistic curiosity evolves into something far more intimate and unsettling. When Kajii quips, 'There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine,' Rika is both repelled and intrigued. Her encounters with Kajii stir questions about desire, denial and the burden placed on women to be both nurturing and ascetic, soft yet stoic. As Rika starts to indulge in the rich, buttery meals Kajii speaks of, her own weight begins to creep up, inviting the same misogynistic scrutiny faced by Kajii. The more she eats, the more blurred the lines become between observer and subject, journalist and accomplice. At times, Rika even catches glimpses of herself in Kajii, clouding her moral compass and sparking chilling self-reflection. 'Are you telling me all three men died of natural causes?' her best friend Reiko demands. 'Their demise brought on because they couldn't keep up with her lifestyle?' Yuzuki's greatest triumph is in framing the act of eating as its own kind of mystery, one that leads us back to childhood, family dynamics and emotional hunger. For both Rika and Kajii, the connection between food and fatherhood becomes a key to understanding their present lives. Butter is satisfying when it leans fully into its sensual, food-soaked prose. Yuzuki's descriptions are so decadent they practically melt off the page. 'This was a different kind of deliciousness,' she writes. 'A more blatant, forceful deliciousness, that took hold of her from the tip of her tongue, pinned her down, and carried her off to some unknown place.' In Butter, food is never just food. It is seduction. It is rebellion. It is shame. And it is survival. This is a novel to be savoured slowly … but also, perhaps, devoured.