Evil and the Mask

About

When Fumihiro Kuki is eleven, his elderly father summons him for a meeting. "I created you to be a cancer on the world," the old man says. It is a family tradition: each generation of the Kuki dynasty produces a child engineered to inflict maximum suffering on those around them. Fumihiro's entire existence has been designed as a weapon. Now he must decide whether to fulfill that purpose or destroy it. Fuminori Nakamura writes literary thrillers that operate like philosophical thought experiments. Here, the question is whether evil can be inherited — whether a person shaped entirely by cruelty can choose to resist the design. The narrative spirals through identity theft, plastic surgery, and moral metamorphosis with the propulsive energy of a crime novel and the weight of an existential crisis. A story about the most dangerous inheritance imaginable — and the nearly impossible task of refusing to become what you were made to be.